George,

Morality. The sanctity of life. The importance of faith. How Christ changed my life and my heart. Support our brave troops. I know his or her heart.

The clichés - the false words fall from those thin lips. When will the country grow so tired of them - so disillusioned with the verbiage; nothing but meaningless prattle, signifying nothing - that it will rise up in righteous outrage?

No. I recant. The words are not "nothing." They are witness to the lives of 2,000 young men and women sacrificed on the altar of a fraud-based war. More than 30,000 Iraqis killed or severely wounded - many permanently so. They, the words, diminish and demean the troops.

More. They signify corruption at the highest level.

They signify using religion as a cover for base and deceptive behavior, again at the highest level. They label an ever-changing rational for invading another country as a "mission."

Heart. This is an organ foreign to the man who speaks its name so freely and frequently. George W. Bush, and his crew, are heartless in the most profound meaning of that word.

Those who are able to restrain themselves from weeping - whether internally or outwardly - over what is going on in our country, in Iraq, in countries as yet "safe" from the mesianic malice of the leaders of the supposedly "free world" may well have forgotten what it means to be human. Or humane.

Barbara Rich (October 26, 2005)