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I found a great post on another site that summed up my feelings about the war better then I could have myself. You can find it (and other stuff) here: http://blog.kynn.com/shock/

The writing below is taken from that site:



Imagine that there's a very bad man in your town -- say, a drug dealer who is preying on kids. He was caught, he's out on probation. Everyone thinks he's still dealing, but so far there's no evidence that can be used to convict him.

One cop steps forward and says, "I know he's bad, and I'm going to execute him." The rest of the town, fearful of this policeman-turned-executioner, says, "Wait, hold on, we have laws for a reason. You can't just kill him because he's bad. We have to catch him doing something wrong."

The cop keeps trying to get the goods on the guy, and keeps failing. He gets search warrants, and can't find anything. He tries to get people to give evidence, but nobody is willing to step forward and testify. The cop even gets some proof which looks like evidence, but it turns out that it certainly won't stand up in a court of law.

"Okay," says the policeman. "I'm just going to go in and blow him away."

"No, no," says the town. "We don't do that."

"Well, if you don't agree with me shooting this guy in the head, I guess you're in league with him. Screw it, I'm not listening to you."

So the cop picks up his gun, and goes down to where this bad guy lives, and opens fire. A few other people get caught in the crossfire, but the bad guy is dead.

Do you cheer?

From one point of view, hell yeah, the bad guy is dead. He won't inflict his harm on anyone else.

But from the other point of view, what sort of town do you now live in where the cop decides who lives and dies? When the rule of law is ignored and the rule of might reigns? Where he who fires first is right?

Were this to happen in a town, the cop would undoubtedly be fired from the force and tried for murder -- even if the dead guy were a bad guy. Even if the people on the scene cheered the bad guy's death. Even if they found drugs on the villain's corpse -- the smoking gun proving that he was, indeed, a bad person.

The rule of law had been shattered, not by the villain but by the cop entrusted with the responsibility to uphold it. Could you again trust that police officer, now wielding the power of judge, jury, and executioner? Could you live in a such town where his right to take out anyone was unchallenged and unchallengeable?

I could not. That is why I oppose the war even while I agree that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq.