Old men send young men to war. I wished I could send George over to Iraq for a tour of duty in a tank. Might get a whole 'nuther perspective.

I did not realise that non-citizens could join the army. I would have thought for security purposes you would have to be a citizen of the United States to join up.

Correct me if I am wrong, Bill, if a non-citizen serves in the US armed services... they area allowed to stay in the country forever. At least I thought I read that somewhere.

Did you know this young Marine personally?
- Dana

Although I normally find myself cheering, "Right ON!" as I read your political posts, I respectfully disagree with your comparison of the President to Adolf Hitler.

I am constantly saddened by the now daily reports of the loss of American and Iraqi life. I disagree with the reasons we went to war, and I think that our war and reconstruction planning was hurried and fundamentally flawed. I think our military leaders should be doing a hell of a lot better; this is their JOB, and there's no excuse for the mediocrity of leadership we've witnessed these past two years. (See: prison abuses, disregard for civilian casualties, inadequately supplied soldiers; revoking of promises made to 'retired' national guard members)

However, Bush's policy on Iraq- which I vehemently disagree with- doesn't begin to come close to Hitler's atrocities. Neither do any of his other wrong-headed and questionably unconstitutional 'security' policies compare to Hitler's regime.

Furthermore, I feel incredibly uncomfortable comparing Bush to Hitler, as it feels distressingly like an insult to the over 6 million Jews, Gypsies, Catholics and 'discontents' that Hitler systematically exterminated. Bush hasn't looted the museums of other countries for our national glory, he hasn't melted down the gold fillings from the dead to pay for the gas chambers that they died in, and he hasn't started ordering the deaths of former administration officials.

Although the death of any American in a war is tragic, it somehow seems more acutely so when it is a young man who wasn't even originally born here and loved his adopted country so much that he wanted to serve and ultimately died for a country that didn't even claim him as a citizen. It was a pointless sacrifice. Nevertheless, that doesn't make Bush a Hitler.

At least, that's my opinion.....

I think bill just meant that they, bush and hitler, were time's "man of the year" and that the criteria is not "greatness" as in the superlative of "goodness" but more about how that person changed/affected the world. I agree that bush's acts do not compare with hitler's atrocities, but, at the same time, I'm frightened about where we're headed. This keeps running through my mind:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

--Pastor Martin Niemoller, Nazi Germany, circa 1945.

I don't think I'm being melodramatic. These are my worries. Can it be too early to see the signs? I don't know, but I do know it can be too late.

stace