"Bush Gives Hussein 48 Hours to Leave"
-Headline of the Washington Post online edition

You hope and you pray that your leaders know more than you, can base their opinions on information you don't have access to, will make decisions that are grounded in experience and learning and thought. You hope and you pray -- even though you're not religious -- that there won't be war in Iraq or in Korea, because all you can see are young men like the ones you used to see in DC, walking through the streets of Baghdad, being shot at by heavily armed civilians and bleeding out and dying. You hope and you pray that somehow, the force of world opinion can actually make a difference to the three or four people making the decisions.

But it was all no use, your hoping and praying, and you start new hopes and new prayers: that the war will be short, and that the leaders really will rebuild, and that somehow your country can get back into the graces of the countries of the world, for without them, we cannot stamp out terrorism and anti-Americanism. This is something that President Bush seems to have forgotten.