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1. There is no connection between Osama bin Laden and Iraq; I am appalled at the number of people who think that Saddam Hussein was somehow behind Sept. 11.

2. The White House postures that we need to invade Iraq because of its violation of U.N Resolution 1441, while the two countries with the highest number of violations of U.N. Resolutions are Turkey and Israel.

4. George Bush has destroyed a world-wide system of alliances and friendships with the United States, and set our political status back 25 years. He has bullied and harassed those nations who do not agree with his insane course of action. A number of U.S. and foreign diplomats have resigned over his behavior, and still he refuses to understand the consequences. It is outrageous that the United States, that bastion of democracy, punishes those nations who participate democratically in world affairs by disagreeing with us. Why is it that the House GOP did not finish what they started and give back the Statue of Liberty?

5. The president does not care about the Iraqi people. The depleted uranium munitions used during the Gulf War have stricken hundreds of Iraqi children with leukemia, other cancers and a host of birth-defects. That is not a war on military units, but a war against an entire people, just as the Romans and Assyrians salted the earth of conquered nations.

6. What possible justification is there for the slander that those who criticize the actions of the president must therefore hate our country? We correct our children when they make mistakes because we love them; the same is true of a democracy. We levy criticisms because we believe in our country and are participating in the very thing that makes us a democracy.

George Bush seems to be going to war with Iraq because of a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, to satisfy his ego and to impress his father. It is Bush who has cost the United States its standing among the nations of the world, further compromised our security, and placed us at risk. He has proposed the largest spending deficit in history, created a political situation by which he justifies his intrusion into ANWR, humiliated or alienated most of the world, and hides it all within the vagaries of a war-budget and jingoistic slogans.

We are allowing ourselves to be duped by a group of men and women who have only their own illusory interests at heart. Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft should be immediately impeached. If we wish to be governed by wisdom and compassion instead of this rough magic, we must demand it for ourselves and from our leaders. The use of military force is sometimes unavoidable, but this is an abuse of our armed forces and shames the dedication of our military personnel. We need to learn to paint the results of enduring diplomacy with those same bright and glorious colors we seem happy to drape over the coffins of the forever young. We have allowed an atrocious leader to assume office. Is that mistake to be followed by the moral suicide of our entire nation?

• Kray Van Kirk has a degree in religious studies with an emphasis in Hebrew and another in marine biology. He has traveled throughout Israel, Palestine, and Egypt, and studied in Jerusalem.