we have a choice. the other countries he is trying to right,their people have no choice.so he is simply trying to help the helpless.question.were you in one of those countries,would you have accepted the u.s.assistance? as per sickness,you know america is best at taking care of their own and then some.now the drugs;is mr. bush giving these people drugs to use that is killing them? or is it a choice they make to use or not to use?

I dont think he is trying to help Iraq.. he went after saddam for different reasons, and now it is just cruel to leave the Iraqi`s in the mess we have created. well I`m sure I will get lots of downrates for this but it is my oppinion!

I cant stand Bush (but I couldnt stand Saddam even more). You can always find problems within your own borders that need ot be dealt with and therefore the logical extention of that argument is that you would never worry about what is happening elsewhere in the world. Im from England. We had to stand up against Germany in the Second World War. America joined that war very late. (Thank God you did join though - oops (Im an athiest but you know what I mean). Without American help, Im sure England would have fallen, and Hitler would have taken the whole of Europe. The Russians put up a very couragious fight against the Germans. If Germany had had only one front to fight on (i.e. England defeated) - then I doubt if the Russians would have been able to survive. With England defeated, it would ahve been much more difficult for the Americans to have halted Germany - without a local base. So Germany under Adolf Hitler (and his allies) would now have controlled all of Europe and more. Would he have stopped there? How bad would the Holocaust have been then? Countries cant live in isolation. Having said all that - Saddam was no where near as much of a threat to the world as Hitler. I wish America and Britain had waited for a UN mandate before attacing Iraq. Mind you I wish France and Russia had not put their financial interests first and supported the mandate.... I am pleased that America and her allies got rid of Saddam.

We have been spending billions on the "homeless" and "impoverished" for years. Yet, they remain amongst us. We have the best fed, wealthiest "lower class" in the world. Have you looked at the hovels in the middle east. That is poverty. Having a house, a few color TV's and an old heap that runs isn't glamorous, but the discrepancy between the rich and poor is substantially lower here than in many countries. I really don't feel that the money I earn and the taxes I pay should be any higher than they are to fund social programs that do not seem able to produce effective results. It would also be your money going to solve these issues, if they can be solved. The money in Iraq would not have been spent on raising living standards. It would have been a part of a smaller deficit that will have to be paid in the future. You ask really good questions, and this is a two parter. You might ask: Can the US expect to provide effective economic relief to Iraq? How can the government better provide for the less fortunate? Feel free to post these. I'll leave them for you.

Mr Bush created the worst problems of Iraq by his invasion. I am surprised he is sending as much money as he is, because he doesn't seem nearly as moral in other areas of his presidency. I was apalled by how little he did for the hurricane victims, and how late he left any effort at all. We're told that we get what we deserve, and UK obviously deserves Blair and Brown (shudder), and US deserves Bush. We made our beds, I'm afraid, and now have to sleep in them.

Great question. I have another one. Why don't we impeach him? He started an illegal war and is disregarding every thing that the Iraq study group recommended.

Because he can't commit political suicide by telling the truth. Lying is an integral part of being a politician. Deny the obvious with a calm confidence, and even sane, sensible people will start to doubt their own judgement! The world saw with their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, how events unfolded, but the master of unblinking denial stuck to his "words" and the "words" have so far prevailed. The intentions behind starting this war will probably always remain moot, but the current ugly reality is that it's on and nobody knows how to turn it off! As someone said, the war has now become its own justification. There will hopefully be a time later to analyse and apportion blame etc but now this quagmire of blood and death must be put right before America pulls out! Of course, this doesn't mean that Bush is needed at the helm anymore though. Someone with more integrity, insight and objectivity would be better suited to getting America out of the mess he's dragged them into. Considering, Bush didn't even know what Sunni and Shia were when he committed to charging ahead with his invasion plans, ( he probably thought they were a couple of singers from the 60's) his prospects of nomination for "tactician of the century" are bleak to say the least! His blatant flouting of the very democratic principals he claims to represent and his tendency to surround himself with only those who tell him what he wants to hear are but two of the many valid reasons why he in not qualified to be in the driving seat of the nation anymore....if he ever was! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=972242473078681503&q=iraq+war

That was a very good question, BUT why is it that Barack Obama is doing the exact same things and continuing almost everything we didn't like about Mr. Bush?