I support funding to protect the troops who have blunderingly been put in harm's way. It is the domestic aspects of the so-called Patriot Act that I object to.

We will never fix the mess that is Iraq. Given the religious and ethnic rivalries that have existed for centuries, it was a doomed idea to have even invented the fiction called Iraq in the first place. Very much like Yugoslavia, another invented country. It's like putting cats and dogs in a bag and hoping they will get along. And that's just get along; to think *democracy* could be airlifted into a region with no history of democracy whatsoever was ludicrous.

Mike

>That article is specific to general support for the war in Iraq, which is not what we were discussing. We were discussing support of the U.S. Patriot Act to increase national security as well as specifically funding for the war. While most Americans do not agree with the U.S. war in Iraq now or that it was a good idea or even justified (I think anyway), still they want the soldiers to have the supplies they need while they are there and they do not want the U.S. to pull out too soon. It is more akin to: "We never should have created this mess, but since we've made this mess now we have to fix it."
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>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/07/AR2005060700296.html
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>>And history will take a dimmer view still. This is the dumbest foreign "adventure" we have ever blundered into.
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>>Mike
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>>>Your statement assumes that only the Republican party wants to extend the Patriot Act and fund the war in Iraq. That is a misconception based on many surveys as well as the most recent election.
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>>>>>So, in essence, the terrorist bombings in Eqypt, London, Lebanon, and Iraq serve to support the Republican Party?
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>>>>Sure, it helps to create a climate of fear, which means they will get support for extending the Patriot Act and funding the war in Iraq.