After I watched the first Bush-Kerry debate and went to sleep, I woke up at like 3am and wrote this:

If you are concerned about the safety of you and your family in this "new world" we live in, you should vote for Kerry. Here's why:

You only have to look at the daily news to see that the world is a much more dangerous place to live in since 9/11 and the war in Iraq — despite all that Bush has been proclaiming. Bush's decision to misleadingly sell Americans and the world on invading Iraq, failing that, and then going ahead anyway has directly led to more terrorism, more and more powerful global terrorist and militant groups, the killing of thousands of American soldiers and innocent civilians in Iraq and Afganistan (and other parts of the world), and hatred of the US by the citizens of most other nations and Muslims around the world. And Bin Laden and "25%" of al-Qaeda (according to Bush) are still on the loose — still effectively spreading fear, terrorism, and hatred. Bush's move to invade Iraq has actually backfired — helping al-Qaeda's cause by motivating more Muslims to take up arms against a "bullying" US.

Bush claims that US and the world are safer because of his "war on terrorism" and invasion of Iraq. Excuse me but after Iraq's invasion, there has been an enormous and unprecedented increase in terrorist activities around the globe — bombings and hostage-takings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, Philippines, Spain, and Egypt. And the numerous hostage beheadings we are seeing today never occurred before either. NO, Bush's war on terrorism has in reality escalated terrorism to an entirely new level. Bush's logic and strategy are incredibly flawed.

Bush and his administration have consistently mislead, deceived and flat-out lied to Americans and the world. They justified the war in Iraq by first claiming that Saddam had links to al-Qaeda. As that proved false, they then tried to justify the war by saying Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction" and was a major terrorist threat. Now as even those have proved false, they have said "so what that all our justifications were wrong — war with Iraq was the right thing to do and even knowing what we know now we still would have done the same". Unbelievable — you cannot get much more unethical, insincere, and arrogant than that. Perhaps they really did know all along that they were majorly stretching the truth to convince the world that invading Iraq was necessary. As the war was ending they also claimed that most Iraqis were happy to be free and liberated. I saw the exact opposite on TV and the newspapers — Iraqis seemed very upset and bitter with all the turmoil and death in their country and they wanted the American "invaders" and "occupiers" out. Bush's administration is now saying that they have made lots of progress in Iraq and that Iraq is under control but the reality is that fierce battles and bombings continue every day and each month more US soldiers and Iraqis are getting killed. Reality is often the complete opposite of whatever the Bush administration is saying.

How can you sensibly support someone who has made such a huge mistake in which thousands have died or suffered greatly as a direct result? That major mistake's effect on global terrorism affects the lives of practically everyone in the civilized world. Do Americans, British, or Australians at home or travelling abroad feel any safer now? Do Indonesians or Russians in their own countries feel any safer now? Of course not. If Bush were heading a company after having made such a big error in judgement and misleading people, he'd have been fired and sued!

Setting up military bases in Iraq and investing billions in new military weapons and a missile defense system, as Bush supports, is not the right way to combat terrorism and to make the world a safer place. The terrorists have proven that these types of counter measures are ineffective against them. If they did get a hold of a nuclear bomb, chances are they would not launch it as a missile and even if they did, I have my doubts about the defense system actually working. And how would you effectively counter such a strike?

A better approach is to more aggressively hunt down Bin Laden and al-Qaeda and at the same time build better relations with Muslims around the world and mend relationships with allies to combat terrorism and hatred, reducing the chances of deadly strikes happening, as Kerry is advocating.

Please vote Kerry — we can't afford another 4 years with Bush misleading, both in terms of making wrong decisions and in deceiving.