Andanh.com

In poll after poll, about two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the war in Iraq, believe things in Iraq are going badly for the United States, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war, consider even the initial decision to go to war to have been wrong, and want the next president to end the war quickly. Yet polls also show that more Americans trust presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than either Democratic presidential candidate when it comes to handling the war in Iraq.

Go figure.

McCain is the one presidential candidate pledging to continue the very Bush administration policies that got us into the mess we're now in, and McCain's record of getting it embarrassingly wrong on Iraq is virtually unparalleled.

Here's McCain, in his own words, getting Iraq wrong from day one:

"Saddam Hussein (is) developing weapons of mass destruction as quickly as he can," he informed Fox News in November 2001. By February 2003, McCain had upgraded Saddam's capabilities and was warning Americans that "(Saddam) has the ability to... (turn) Iraq into a weapons assembly line for al-Qaida's network."

The middle of a worldwide food crisis may seem an odd time to worry about an industrialized agriculture system that's delivered enormous amounts of relatively cheap and reasonably high-quality food. But the current system poses risks to public health, the environment, our rural communities and the welfare of the animals themselves.

That's the conclusion of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which recently released its report following 2 ½ years of work. After meetings held around the country, public hearings, on-site visits, input from stakeholders and reams of scientific papers, the troubles have become far clearer.

We've gone from a system where a family farm might have 50 to 100 hogs and a few chicken coops to gigantic farms with up to 50,000 pigs or 10 million chickens. Unfortunately, with the economies of scale have come equally scaled-up problems.

The intensive confinement practiced in these industrial settings sets the stage for rapid disease transmission. And to make matters worse, the stress of the confinement itself can increase the incidence of disease. To stem that, antibiotics are given so imprudently that while one problem is solved, another one -- antibiotic resistance -- is created, leaving at risk a critical line of medical defense against disease.

Meanwhile, communities near such huge facilities may suffer from groundwater con-tamination or air emissions that can cause respiratory and neurological problems, especially in the children and the elderly. The concentrated chemicals and excess nutrients can also find their way into our lakes, rivers and streams.