Everyone in America, no matter what their political beliefs are, back our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Backing our fighting men and women should be something that is instilled in every American.

Bush, in his 2002 state of the union address, stated that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are countries that could harm the United States and its interests here and abroad. Well we are already fighting in Iraq, not very successfully and some sort of conflict with Iran seems to be on the horizon. This is what worries me!

Our military, at least the ground troops, are stretched so thin it is amazing. Can we really sustain a fight against another country? This is not about loosing more American lives to a cause that I do not believe in. American military units have already rotated to the Iraq theatre not once, not twice, but some three of four times. They are tired, they do not understand why they are there, and well that is my belief anyway.

President Bush has already started sending additional troops, a small portion of the 21,500 that have been allocated to increase our presence over there. Just yesterday the new commanding general asked for 2,200 more military police to be sent so they could handle the number of detainees that will come from this new security crackdown.

Is he really sending these additional troops to help with this crackdown, or is Iraq becoming a staging area for a possible conflict with its neighbor, Iran. That is what comes to mind. He has already said that their nuclear buildup will not be tolerated and I can understand that everyone has a problem with Iran having nuclear capabilities, but I do not believe that it is worth a conflict.

Our military cannot sustain another conflict and if this comes to the forefront there will be a draft coming to your neighborhood really soon. We just do not have the numbers of soldiers that we had during Operation Desert Storm, when 750,000 American troops were sent to the region. The combination or our active, reserves, and National Guard troops do not even come close to that as far as actual combat forces.

Americans would not stand for a draft; it would be the final straw for the Bush administration. At the same time though I do not think that Bush really cares what the American people think, he is in his last term and seems to be just doing whatever it takes, in his own mind that is.

Please lets not allow this administration to place our youth in the military via a draft number. I truly hope that it does not come to that, but if we go to war with Iran it will not matter, there will be a draft, I guarantee that. We will be totally alone if we start a conflict with Iran, there will not be a coalition at all. Oh wait we are already alone!