Knucklehead

I think you’re misunderestimating the Democratic position. Almost all Democrats believe we should do something about the perpetrators of 9/11, i.e., Osama bin Laden and/or al Qaida. There is no agreement that we should have attacked Iraq however.

To my mind at least this is what it all hinges on. The case for war with Iraq is weak. Although we’ve found bits and pieces of forbidden weapons, we have not found anything that was a direct threat to the United States. Reasonable people in the same position would have chosen differently. That doesn’t justify all the Bush hatred of course. But it’s far from clear that Iraq was a clear and present danger. Many Americans believe that we do not have the right to attack other countries preemptively just because we feel like it, and a president whose own war experience is dodgy does not have the right to order other people to their deaths for a cause which is not a direct threat to the United States.

As you have stated, we have to answer the two questions: “what are we willing to kill for” and “what are we willing to die for”. The answers that one person will come up with are not the same as those that another will reach. It doesn’t follow that the person who decides this particular battlefield is not worth dying for is not patriotic and doesn’t see a problem. That characterization of the Democrats is just not reality.