Bush likes to attack Kerry for being soft on terrorism, and what's more depressing is that a large portion of the American people seem to agree with him. If I were Kerry, I would attack Bush for being dumb on terrorism.

It truly boggles my mind how Bush thinks he will win the war on terrorism especially with the situation in Iraq. Does he expect to quell terrorism by eliminating all terrorists? Call me a hopeless optimist, but isn't it a better idea to build world peace by bridging the cultural gaps and helping out our fellow human beings? People aren't born hating each other are they?

One consequence of surrounding yourself with Yes-men as the Bush administration has done is that you always think you're right because everyone agrees with you. There is no trusted advisor who can intervene and present honest differing opinions with reasonable credibility. Colin Powell could have been that force in the build up to the war with Iraq, but his voice was lost in a cacophony of hawkish tones presented by Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. The problems go deeper than just that of course. The intelligence that the administration received about Iraq was tuned exactly for the ears of the President. The most trivial and unproven pieces of evidence which confirmed the administrations beliefs were held up as fact, while even solid dissenting evidence was quickly discredited or classified. It's really no surprise that Bush got exactly the damning intelligence he needed to justify his war. And now the American public is paying the price.

Separately, Taiwan is in the news. There have been talks that Taiwan wants to acquire offensive weapons capabilities which China would treat as a prelude to war. This would not be good. 2/3 of Americans would not support sending US troops to Taiwan to defend them. I'm with the majority here and my parents are Taiwanese. I can't see how sending US troops would be good in any way. It's an unsolvable problem if there is a war.