"non-manufactured terror threat."

I beg to differ.

"There is an appalling lack of patriotism and respect for our government in this country."

I only see the latter which is not to be included with patriotism.
They are seperate things. This government is certainly doing their best to try and link the two but its a false association.
This government has more than earned their disrespect.

I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on patriot act 1 and patriot act 2 (in waiting)? What are the implications of these new laws?

"Sitting back and doing nothing resulted in 9/11. That was a very real, non-manufactured terror threat."

Do you really believe it was Saddam Hussein and his cronies who ordered that attack or had anything to do with it? Do you really believe that Saddam Hussein had or has any motive to attack the United States?

Osama bin Laden was a credible source for the 9/11 attack. With no allegiance to a country, and no country of his own, he had no good reason not to attack the United States. [We'll pretend for a moment that our amazing intelligence services had no idea this was going to take place.] Bin Laden had no power base to maintain. He did have a motive. [Actually, more like a score to settle, but let's pretend for a moment that he's merely an Islamic nut who sees visions of Allah commanding him to attack Christians.] It's kinda like the system in the United States. Having ties makes you more credit worthy; having ties makes you less likely to be criminal; having ties makes it less likely that you'll flee the country on bail. Osama had no ties, so it was easy for him to be criminal. Nevertheless, if he managed to pull off this attack, then we should at least credit him with having some degree of intelligence. After all, he managed to outwit the entire US government, including the CIA and NSA.

Hussein, on the other hand, has no appreciable ties to the Islamic community, and certainly none to the al-Qaeda network that the CIA or anyone else has been able to locate, but he does have ties to a country he's trying to maintain an iron grip on. The moment you have something to lose -- and Hussein had plenty to lose -- you think twice about getting yourself on someone's hit list.

He might be a vicious tyrant, but he's not stupid. Vicious tyrants rarely are -- in fact, they're usually devious, dangerously intelligent, and a bit paranoid. Oh, and many of them believe they are acting on God's behalf. Amusingly, Hussein does not match that last criterion. Hussein and the Ba'ath party was secular, founded by Christians, and they made it safe for Christians to live in Iraq.

I put a negative twist on my the positive side of this because there is no positive thing I can say about this illegal war. Those of you who support the war simply ignore all the death and destruction which has occurred. It doesn't (seem to) matter to you one bit that we've continued our legacy of murder and terror -- no amount of rationalization and justification changes that fact. If you were an Iraqi civilian, you would be in a state of terror (assuming you hadn't gone completely numb in some sort of defensive apathy) at the thought of a stray (or intentional) missile heading your way. From their viewpoint, it's terrorism, and the only viewpoint you should consider is the victim's when considering whether or not something is terrorism. That's how we judge it for ourselves, so let's please at least be consistent.

Maybe you can sleep better at night knowing that there will be "one less" (imaginary, since he had something to lose!) threat to "us" with the removal of Saddam Hussein. But it turns my stomach to see what we've become -- nay, continued to be, but now brazenly and with "patriotic support" -- and I do not feel more safe at all.

I feel considerably less safe.

=-John-=