I guess I am qualified to comment on both sides of the equation, given my background. I must tell you DougR, with all due respect, that your comments are as simplistic as the side which you lambast. The fact of the matter is that every major war, including WWII, has been settled more on the basis of economics than on the basis of muscle. It is altogether to easy to say the bomb did it, but look at what that same bomb put us through for the 50 years following the war. And for all our muscle, we still went through 'Nam, Korea, Panama, Desert Storm and now Afghanistan. All of our vaunted muscle did not stop war, it just made our "enemies" more desperate. It has done nothing to make the world or the USA safer. Don't believe it? Ask the families of 3,000 dead in NYC. Is the Mideast safer for our bullheaded support of, and arming of, Israel. How many more Israeli and Palestinian kids have got to die before we get the fact that people have aspirations and that theirs are just as legitimate as ours? Do you think that peace will come to the North of Ireland because one side is stronger than the other? Hasn't been the case for 400 years and won't be the case now. It will come because it will make sense to do come. It will come when the folks realize that one cannot survive and prosper unless the other does. And anything we do to foster peace in these countries is money better spent than arming them, or worse, just leaving them to "slug it out".

I am the furthest thing from an unthinking peacenik, but I am no closer to being a slogan slinging conservative. The approach has got to be one that is intolerant of jingoistic crap, and that rewards people of courage and vision that seek peace at all costs. These are the true heroes. I want to sing their songs.

Mick