It would please me very much if we could stop the discussions about Iraq - it is rather off-topic for this board after all. You see, I am ambivalent about all this, and feel myself to be right in the middle of it all. On the one hand I do feel that sheer wickedness (i.e. Saddam Hussein and his régime) should be punished and obliterated, and some power or other would have to do that. But on the other hand I am not a war-monger and feel sick at heart at the thought of how many innocent people will have to suffer and/or die in order to achieve that aim.

Yesterday I spent almost two excruciating hours waiting for one of the visitors to this MB to phone me so that I would know that he was not among those students killed by a suicide bomber; (thank God, he was not). Many young and innocent people were killed and maimed in that incident. But the family of that suicide terrorist will receive from Saddam Hussein $35000 as compensation for the loss of their dear one - and in order to encourage still more young people to become human bombs.

I know it is a cheek to ask this, but could we please stop the discussion on this topic. I do not find it productive and I do find it very painful.