The American people, as a whole, still believe that their vote actually counts for something. The greatest and most powerful nation on the earth and the people actually still believe that the global powers…the ones who really run the country, along with the rest of the planet, are truly going to leave the fate of the nation and it's leadership to the vote of the people. How naïve is that?

“We the people” only know what we're told…for the most part. People get up in the morning, they eat breakfast, get dressed, go to work and try not to get mugged, killed or fired. If they make it through the day unscathed, they then go home, read the paper…(manipulated information intended mostly to entertain and amuse than truly inform), listen to the kids fight, the dog bark, eat dinner and send off a few checks to the creditors (BILLS) before watching a little television, also meant to enthrall, hypnotize and manipulate the majority, before drinking a little warm milk to ease the heartburn and go to bed.

All we know about the war in the Middle East is what we are told by way of news paper and T.V. The truth exists in the reality of those who are having to live the nightmare and for the time being…that is NOT the American public…although that is about to change.

A truly unhappy woman left a comment on my “Who Is Obama” article that caused me some serious discomfort. First of all she clearly did not understand what I had written or she seriously misinterpreted it and I am sorry.

Outside of those who have suffered most, there are few people as unhappy with the state of the union as I presently am. Our Presidents have done unconscionable, unspeakable atrocities and then lied through their teeth or just plain outright denied the truth to the people.

In 1998...if I'm not mistaken, the UN Summit Conferences held in Turkey, were kept totally and entirely from the American people. Bill Clinton and his charming wife Hillary, along with her miscreant Women's Caucus, deliberately kept this conference from the people and then sought to pass one law after another, which would directly effect the lives of every American man, woman and child, not only in America but around the world! Laws on abortion, laws on marriage, laws on family and household income, laws on daycare. The American people are suffering, thanks to our conscienceless government, along with the rest of the homeless, orphaned and afflicted world populace!

There are very few who are happy with the Clinton administration or either of the Bush administrations and we fear with great trepidation, doubt and social conflict, the next administration to take office. No one dares to vote because there isn't anyone worthy to take office and we all know it! Those who vote…their votes don't mean crap anyway and the rest of us…the silent majority, have no power and so refuse to advocate either of the two evils. To do so would only result in a black spot upon our own souls, as our party goes to and fro upon the earth terrorizing, dominating and killing whomever they so choose at will.

When people look at the U.S. and think evil and hatred upon it's hardworking, if not totally ignorant population, who only seek, for the most part, to do an honest day's work for an honest days wage and see to the needs of their families, I am sorry for you because clearly you are as ignorant to the facts and the truth as we are. Nothing would please our world leaders more than to have all of us blue collar laborers, in every country, rise up in hatred and kill of the majority of the worlds population. It's what they've been trying to do for decades now! How much easier would it be if we all just killed each other without them having to invent new ways to do it themselves?

Wake up people! I don't care what God you worship or from what land you hail….WAKE UP! The United States is not the enemy and neither are her people! It's all the governments in all the lands…the UN is the enemy, the Illuminate is the enemy, the super wealthy around the globe who want absolute autonomy over all people are the enemy. The people in every land, who are just regular people, trying desperately to survive and leave something worth remembering to the next generation are NOT the enemy. Get your facts strait people and begin placing blame where it belongs in the Whitehouse… not in the little run down ranch homes that dot the land or the slums where people are making and selling drugs in order to feed their families. We are also suffering. Maybe we haven't been attacked with bombs and troops with guns from other lands but we suffer disease without relief, we suffer homelessness and starvation just like the rest of the world. “We the People” Just want peace and there is none to be found. We're not the bad guys Sara. We're victims JUST LIKE YOU.

Generally, to the lay person, or non-military citizen, any form of torture is barbaric and should not be exercised. This has to be due to the lack of knowledge of its usefulness in wartime. Granted, torture seems to be excessive and cruel, but take a moment and think about it.

I was an infantry soldier in the U.S. Army and fought in the Vietnam War. I witnessed much suffering and many deaths on both sides during heavy battles, and after repeated attacks on us by the enemy, I soon realized that if we could use some form of torture to obtain useful information to survive and to be one step ahead of the enemy, it would be worth it.

There were times when we captured enemy combatants, who we believed had information that could help us prevent a lot of bloodshed, but because we had to conduct ourselves by the code of conduct set out by the Geneva Conference, forbidding torture, we could not force it out of them.

On occasion, the enemy entered a village and killed most of its able bodied men, then waited for us to arrive and walk into an ambush. Had we been able to force information from our captives, in advance, we may have had a chance to prevent some of these atrocities.

Torturing anyone is not for the faint of heart, but after spending some time fighting, one begins to harden and realize that if torture is the only way to gain valuable information to prevent suffering and death, then it has to be considered a necessary tactic in wartime.

Occasionally, when we suspected that our captives knew something we needed, but we could not get it out of them, we turned them over to the South Vietnamese soldiers, who often fought along with us.

These fighters sometimes used tactics that we could not exercise to make the enemy talk. For example, they would take the enemy combatants up in a helicopter and push them out, or drag them alive through the jungle behind a PC (personnel carrier). You would be surprised at how much useful information was gained that could be used to prevent suffering of a larger scale. (Of course a lot of this may not be admitted or discussed today.)

When the subject of torture is discussed, it would be wise to not condemn it without knowing how necessary and useful it is during wartime. In other words don't argue and rant and rave over something you know nothing about.

China has long been the principal ally of the Burmese generals, shielding them from censure at the UN Permanent Security Council by judicious use of the veto and sending thousands of Chinese workers to build the infrastructure that might just help transform the Burmese economy from its disastrously ramshackle state of affairs. China has also contributed a hydroelectric power station which has made possible the extraordinary relocation of the capital to Naypidaw from Rangoon (Yangon). When it was first announced that the capital had suddenly been moved, there was widespread amazement across the region. Very few people have been permitted to visit the site of the new capital, which initially appeared to be just a few buildings in what had once been them idle of the jungle. Naypidaw now has accommodation blocks for civil servants and more impressive apartment buildings for senior officials. Ministry buildings have been completed on a standard basis, with Burmese motifs enhancing the architecture. There are precious few facilities for the civil servants who have been forced to uproot themselves and move halfway across the country. There are certainly very few opportunities for the notoriously poorly-paid junior civil servants to find ways to supplement their meagre incomes. No embassies have yet to move to the new capital and no businesses have been willing or, indeed permitted, to establish representative offices there. In terms of efficiency of governance, the move is as debilitating as it is mystifying. There is still speculation that paranoid Than Shwe feared invasion by sea from US forces, although that seems a remote possibility. Others have noted that Naypidaw is close to the location of one of the historical imperial capital sites and speculated that Rangoon is too much under the influence of the British colonialists. Others again talk about moving to a location closer to the centre of the country to be closer to all regions. In any case, the enormous expenditure of resources seems to be a wholly wasteful disaster.

The movement of the capital also means that the generals are far removed from the centres of protest in Rangoon, Mandalay and other important towns and cities in the country. Whether Than Shwe is still capable of being swayed by the sight of military goons attacking unarmed monks with batons and guns remains to be seen, although surely there are some among the junta who would be. However, they are not there. Even the UN Emissary, Ibrahim Gambari, is finding it difficult to gain access to the generals, although he has apparently been able to speak to democratically-elected prime minister Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held under house arrest for years and who has never been permitted to take up her legal right to rule the country. Indeed, Than Shwe took over the country after a series of struggles among the military in 1993, when a more hard-line attitude towards the democratic process became evident. Now the military is trying to lock down the country, apparently having turned off internet and mobile phone connections and, according to its editor, launched a denial-of-service attack against the pro-democracy magazine The Irrawaddy (Irrawaddy). However, modern information technology has become so prevalent and the technical abilities of the Burmese military so ham-fisted compared to the nimble young people able to outwit them that it is almost impossible to prevent news leaking out these days. The atrocities that are being committed will become known and, at least so it is to be hoped, perpetrators will one day be punished.

Rumours are swirling around the expatriates in Thailand and the media that hundreds of monks were dragged out of their monasteries are placed in detention. People fear the real death toll is enormously higher than the nine or ten variously reported as having been acknowledged by the junta. International condemnation of the acts of violence has been patchy: US President George W Bush has been commendably vocal but his credibility is at a very low ebb after his various foreign and domestic policy escapades; European leaders are firm but compromised by the businessmen perfectly happy to come and do business where they can. India has been silent. It is China to which we look for a lead in these trying times.

All of these started when Lozada came out in the open to tell everyone the truth about the ZTE scandal. Lozada claimed that Arroyo was part of it as well as him. He said that he can't take his conscience any longer that is why he told the governing body of the Malacañang about the scandal. After that, the rice shortage, price hike, etc. became the major problem in the Philippines. The Filipinos are not that stubborn to start with that's why some of them are still upraising that it is just the way of Arroyo to get away with her problem. But I think now, she succeeded 'cause the Filipinos are just forgetting about the real issue. Is it just her way of getting things over or is the Philippines really suffering from all these? Those questions will just be answered by the president and I hope the status of the Philippines would get better.