Troll, I am very pleased that you have stopped the rhetoric. You are very lucid and persuasive when you talk more openly. I hope you appreciate the following explaination. I don't think that we are as far apart as it may seem.

The kid is calling protestors cowards. Cowards who don't love their country. Its a very common attitudes among the arm chair war hawks who often frequent these forums. I'm not actively anti war. but if that kid wants to send a message that he thinks that people who protest the war are against him. I want to see him told that there are other issues and that those who are against the war are not against him.

The protestors against Viet Nam saved a lot of lives. The government didn't give the troops the support they needed and they didn't fight the war to win. They expected the South Vietnamese to rise up and defeat the North just as Cheney expected the shi'ites to defeat Saddam. The Ba'ath party and Saddam's paramilitary seem to be very similar to the Viet Cong and no doubt Saddam considers himself to be at least the equal of Ho Chi Mihn. I don't want the kids over there now to go through what that generation did. General Powell's doctrine for the last war was overwhelming force. Mr. Rumsfeld's is do more with less. Lets not lets Mr. Rumsfeld's pride cost American lives.

Is your son in a war zone. Has he been told that those protests are about him? If that is so please tell him that the vast majority of people who are criticizing the war realize that it wasn't his decision. They are grateful for what he does and they will be glad to welcome him home when this is over. And tell him to watch his ass because even the best can die when their unit is outnumbered on enemy turf.

I'd be for the war if it were being run better. But I'm really concerned about the ability and credibility of the administration. I would like for them, to stop waffling about the reasons, to stop telling lies and spreading propaganda that no one believes and I would like for Rumsfeld in particular, to be a man and take responsibility as Secretary of Defense and to stop spreading the the blame and the heat down the line to his generals. He is setting a horrible example, an example that I believe the vast majority of US officers way have to much honor to copy, but a bad example never the less.