I'm still not sold on this war.

I don't like Sadaam Hussein, his family, or his Baath Party cronies. I don't like the way he treats his own people.

But I also don't know if a war with Iraq is our best move right now. I think I'm still bothered by the fact that the linkage to terrorism isn't that great. The approach to this war seems much more focused on the potential threat than the actual one. And while I can see that being pro-active can work to prevent future acts, I don't know if we aren't opening up new animosity that will lead some other country to take Iraq's place. It worries me that, three or four years from now, we'll possbily have troops in Afghanistan, an occupation government in Iraq, and then perhaps feel that Syria or Yemen or somebody is now posing a threat to our national security.

In a way, this brings me back to the 1980s, where the fear was that Reagan was going to intervene in Central America and we'd have soldiers going from country to country until we had men in uniform from the Mexican border to the Panama Canal. My hope is that the current situation doesn't move to resemble this.

The other big question, of course, is what do we do about March Madness if we're bombing Baghdad? I tend to agree with the participants in the ESPN.com Sports Nation poll that we go about our business and play anyway. God knows if we wait for a more "appropriate" time, we may not start the tournament until November.

I do agree that the MLB games in Japan may not be the best thing going right now, not so much due to the Japanese (who are apparently OK with the war thing) but as a potential target.

In related news, the French are beginning to show their displeasure with the whole "replace French with freedom" thing by sending packages of pretzels to the White House. Good to see they haven't lost their sense of humor.