Response to Maureen Dowd's column

Hi Mr. Nicky, a.k.a., the 'conservative'. I feel compelled to respond to what you have written. You state that we do not hear enough about the good that we've done and the progress we made. Yes, we have rebuilt schools and hospitals and water purification plants as well as police, rescue and military forces. But tell me, how much credit do I deserve for rebuilding my neighbor's house after I burned it down? Rebuilding is obviously a good thing but I refrain from calling it progress when these structures and forces were in place before we caused their demise. A war is raging, soldiers are dying and yet this is what you choose to call progress? Interesting, to say the least. Progress would be to stop the casualities. President Bush has stayed the course, as he proudly boasts. His strategy for winning the peace has not worked in 4 years, and yet, he's staying the course. If your ship is sinking, do you go down with it or bail out well before it sinks? He criticized Kerry for flip-flopping. I am personally a big fan of flip-flopping. It means you are not as stubborn as a mule. When you see something needs to be changed, you change it. If Bush could do that, well now, that's what I call PROGRESS. You say that Bush has laid a democratic foundation and the work is almost complete. True, there have been democratic elections and it is true they are trying to get their political house in order. I repeat, trying. Lock a Sunni, a Shiite and a Kurd in a room and don't let them out until they all agree on a governmental plan. They'd surely die of starvation well before they agree on a plan. Realistically, have the elections done anything more than feed the insurgency? Don't get me wrong. I am not against the democratic process and I sincerely hope that Iraq continues having free elections, however, to say the work is almost complete is simply not true. Stop the war with the insurgency and then I'll say we're almost complete. Clinton, it is said, did not take out BinLaden when he could have. If Clinton knew what was to come, he certainly would have. Bush did KNOW what happened and he still had us divert our troops to Iraq and not 'stay the course' and capture BinLaden at Tora Bora. Bush, you say, has shown strength and conviction to the rest of the world. I don't see us as being anything more than a bully. We have less clout now in the world than perhaps we've had at anytime before WWI. I spoke with some Brazilians that had come to my work. Not one of them had a nice thing to say about Bush. Plus they all emphasized his incompetence. If soldier's lives weren't on the line, it'd actually be funny. BTW, I would certainly care about what has been accomplished, if indeed, something had been accomplished. Finally, yes were are fortunate to be protected from the horrors of war. Perhaps, if we weren't, Bush's 28 % percent following, would finally see that war was not the answer to our problem. JMHO, didn't mean any disrespec