but only a couple reasons not to do so. The most important one is that there better be a damn good reason to commit mass murder, because no matter how bad a country's leader is, the civilians did not state that they were willing to sacrifice their lives to be rid of him. I don't recall the referendum of about one-half-million people declaring their desire for mass murder to be rid of such a terrible man, who after the suffering the Iraqi people may not look quite as bad. Since there was no declaration for mass suicide, it is probably accurate to refer to Iraqi deaths as mass murder. The reason for labeling the invasion in this way is because anyone with, at least, one brain cell knew that Iraq was so weak, and its people so brainwashed that the country didn't stand a chance in hell against the United States. It was never a question of whether the U.S. would lose or not; the question was how many Iraqis would be killed in the process. The reason this question must be asked is because one day it may dawn on Americans that Iraqis are people. They are not "camel jocks" "sand n*****s," or "towel heads."

Since it was a given that the invasion would amount to mass murder, one might consider what the justifications are for mass murder. There are two legal justifications, self defense and to stop genocide. To profit from mass murder, and to use mass murder to steal another nation's resources are not legally sufficient or moral excuses. We know that they are immoral, because killing for profit is immoral, and killing while in the act of committing a robbery is immoral. We know this because we wouldn't want it done to us.

Agape or altruism is not required to understand this. Self preservation is the reason civilized nations choose laws to protect themselves from criminal behavior, not perfectly, of course, but better than nihilism.

It is the legally unjustifiable nature of the invasion and occupation of Iraq that the right wing in America are attempting to hide behind simple-minded concepts such as "winning" or "losing". A nation cannot "win" or "lose" a criminal act. The nation either discontinues its illegal activities or it tries to fool the world into believing that if the criminals are prevented from continuing to mass murder America will lose.

The reality is that when the criminals are stopped from committing their crimes they will be prosecuted, and "they" will pay. The United States does not "lose" the American people do not "lose" the criminals lose. This is as it should be; although due to the efforts of the mainstream media, the neo-cons, and the neo-fascists mass murder will continue to be sold as a necessity and the "right" thing to do. This is not only a lie; it is a damn lie, and is about time that Americans let the criminals know that not one more American soldier should die to protect the criminals from being prosecuted.

The only people to lose will be the guilty parties. Enough of this nonsense about America winning or losing. It is regrettable that we should have to cope with the murderous decisions of an arrogant, racist, and delusional pack of wild dogs, but America is strong and so too are its people. Though we have suffered this type of leadership before; it hasn't been since the genocide against Native-Americans that our country has suffered such immoral leadership. It needs to understand that there are consequences for wanton militarism, as well as for those who cheerlead this nightmare.

The time has come to stop doing the barbaric, immoral and criminal thing, and rejoin the other advanced nations in legally acceptable behavior. As responsible citizens of the world, we can no longer protect the criminally insane from their responsibility. Iraq is not America's war to lose, it is the criminal and immoral leader's war to end, so that Americans can extricate themselves from a crime in progress, and restore our reputation as a nation that respects human dignity and the sovereignty of all nations.

Here in Sydney, joy reigned unconfined. Of course, a few diehard bluerinsed dingbats snorted , but even they have to come round to the idea that they, and Howards Bastards, were OUT!!.. not only out but disintegrated. The highest office in the entire land held by a Howard party member is the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and a few dogcatchers. In the ENTIRE country. And even they are merely hanging on. JOY!! It was a rout, a scramble for the lifejackets, a true iceberg Titanic moment, if you stood still long enough you could hear the rip of the hull. JOY!!!. Down they went, one by one from the Pacific to the Indian ocean, from the Arafura sea to the Great Southern Ocean, across this wide brown land.

And as the realisation sunk in among the rats, the real scramble began. One by one, those that were left shifting the deckchairs around began to understand that they had hit the political wilderness for a DECADE. Gone!!. Not one of them can bear to be the leader of a party in opposition. All of them have suddenly understood that we laughed at them, finally.

Luckily, a few are left to entertain us from the backbenches of the lonely in Parliament. And they are mostly the hardest of Howards Remnants. So there they will be, on my TV screen, (Parliament is broadcast every day on the public channel here) and I can look forward to 11 years at least of them writhing and blinking up the back near the lavatories as rats do when cornered..

JOY!!.... They made a horror of my country for no better reason than madness gone feral.

As of 7:57 Sydney time Howard had 45.28% of the vote and Maxine McKew had 45.75%, the Greens had 5.41% and 4.9% voted informal, Christian Democrats 1.3% nobody else over 1%. Note the loony fundies got less than the "None of the above"s/scribblers. Green preferences will go at least 80% to our Maxine (Howard's only recently accepted global warming and is as pro-mining/forestry as anyone alive) so unless the postal vote is phenominally biased towards the Libs he's toast.

Source Australian Electoral commission website.

http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-13745-105.htm