We don`t have to say anything just because children are being slaughtered.

[democrank]

How far do we carry this stay quiet stuff? Midnight on the 19th? Is there some kind of rule Obama needs to follow? Is he supposed to keep his principles secret as long as Bush is running around the White House lawn on his mountain bike? Don`t make waves, is that it? Don`t rile the senators? The lobbyists? Don`t risk a "liberal" tag? A "palling around with terrorist" comment? Isn`t this exactly what most of us did during the Iraq War? Stay quiet?

I honestly don`t get the chatter lately. It`s Hamas! It`s Israel! You know what? It`s both of them. And who suffers? Innocent civilians like the dead and maimed people we decided not to count in Iraq. The ones retired generals on cable news used to call collateral damage. You know, one is too many and we respect innocent life. Those guys.

If Democrats learned nothing else from the carnage of the Bush years, we should have learned that we have a duty to speak up. Many citizens and many of our elected officials stayed quiet. Passively quiet.Submissively quiet. Just like many of us are willing to do today while arms are being blown off four year olds and elderly women have a pool of blood where their pocket used to be. Is there no such word as proportionality?

We should stand for something, no matter what and end the excuses, end the winks and nods and end looking the other way. If we don`t we might as well join the rest of them who made jokes about naked pyramids and who thought it was way cool for Junior Bush do a Baghdad plastic turkey photo op at the same time maimed soldiers were ducking chunks of molded, rotting ceilings at Walter Reed.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JuniperLea]

2. How about not poking Bushie the Warmonger with a sharp stick?

It's sad this has to be said, and even sadder it is the way it is.

I trust Obama to do the right thing. I'm sure he knows a lot more about this than we do.

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. Spot on and well said

k & r