The conservative groups of the nation have long been focusing on the issues of gay marriage and abortion as the principal issues that our people need to defend. McCain has shifted his policies to be in line with these groups, but what are the chances that a President can make a difference, especially with a Democrat Congress? Or against the liberal leaders of states like California and Massachuttsetts?

Very low.

In order to overturn the Supreme Court decision on abortion, the Supreme Court judges would have to be unilaterally conservative. Conservatives dominate the Supreme Court at the moment--however, most of them would still be daunted at the issue of overturning their earlier ruling. Overturning a Supreme Court decision is one of the most difficult things to do under our government system.

Essentially, you are electing a president for their foreign policy. Anything else has to go through Congress and the Supreme Court. McCain has made a great issue of Obama's idea of sitting down with people like Putin and Ahmedinijan without preconceived terms. He fails to address the issue of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda is the single greatest terrorist threat to our country. Not Iran. Not Pakistan or Syria. The leaders of those countries have to step very carefully around the issue of nuclear power, and if they launched a nuclear bomb against the United States or Israel, they would be obliterated by the collective force of the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, and dozens of other countries, including Arab countries. It's bad politics, especially after the Georgia crisis, for even Russia to side with a country that has made an unprovoked attack on another nation.

But Osama Bin Laden, were he to obtain a nuclear weapon, would not hesitate. Or if he were to obtain another plane. There is still no way to prevent ceramic knives from getting past security in an airport. Those were the only weapons the 911 hijackers used. Put them in your pocket sometime and see what happens. Unless you are picked up for a random check, you will make it on the plane with those knives.

Bush has mired us in distractions like Iraq when the real threat is still in the hills of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The world community did not hesitate to send troops, along with the US's, to Afghanistan. By alienating Europe with the Iraq War, we have severely damaged our credibility, and thus our ability to put pressure on nations like Pakistan whose border includes the area where Al-Qaeda have traditionally been most able to operate.

Without Europe, based on our new isolationist foreign policy, we will have less credibility. We need restore the trust of Europe in our foreign policy, and with that collective pressure, maneuver those countries into allowing us to hunt Al-Qaeda within their borders. Therefore we need a president who, much as it rankles the collective US to do so, is willing to sit down with men like Ahmedinijan

I don't like it either.

But there is nothing that can stop another determined terrorist attack. Would you like to see them get the White House this time? Or the Empire State Building? How about the New York Stock Exchange? Would you like to see car bombs in New York? How about Los Angeles? I know how to make homemade napalm, and blasting caps, and Molotov cocktails, and there's a good chance you do too. What if they took those into Disneyland?

The Patriot Act does more harm than good if the US military is not actively focusing all their efforts on finding Al-Qaeda. Guantanamo Bay is filled with dissidents against the governments of Pakistan, sent there as a way for these governments to conveniently get rid of these dissidents. The real terrorist are in blacked-out CIA bases. Because of Iraq and the Bush administrations obsession with taking out Saddam Hussein, our country has lost sight of the real threat.

If you vote for Barack Obama, you are voting for a new system of hunting terrorists. If you vote for McCain, you are voting for the system that failed to find Bin Laden and a ridiculously ineffective way to affect social policies.

Each presidential candidate has to face some really difficult choices over the issue of war and foreign policy. There is no answer that does not choose the lesser of two evils. So ask yourself. Who is the lesser, Iraq or Al-Qaeda?