It’s time to ignore the ads that insult our intelligence and recklessly distort the truth and educate yourself. Go to the scrupulously nonpartisan Web site www.factcheck.org. Check out the cost of the war in Iraq: it’s $120,000,000,000 so far. That’s $500 per American or 27 times the entire annual budget of the state of Iowa.

This unpaid, rapidly growing bill contributes substantially to the federal budget deficit of half a trillion dollars, due to the fiscally unconservative Bush administration’s tax policies. This bill, with interest, will be paid by you and your offspring for years. What have we got for this expenditure? A chaotic breeding ground for terrorists, a country with police that can’t trust their own ranks and 380 tons of explosives that wound up missing yesterday.

Even if you are for the war in Iraq, the current administration is clearly incompetent at waging it. As a result of this “leadership,” many traditionally apolitical, knowledgeable experts in diverse fields have been motivated to take a stand. For example, a bipartisan group of former military leaders and diplomats who served in the previous six presidential administrations (including Reagan and the first Bush) is so concerned by the destruction of diplomatic relations and the Bush administration’s deployment of American soldiers with little hesitation or foresight, that it has formed a group called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change: diplomatsforchange.com.

From a completely different view, a group of leading scientists, including 48 Nobel Prize winners (who ought to know how to sort out fact from fiction and draw logical conclusions), also seeks to remove Bush: scientistsandengineersforchange.org/index.php.

Christians might seek advice from this site: go.sojo.net/campaign/takebackourfaith that asserts that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. Don’t vote by what you wish were true or by the carefully crafted image. Rationally consider the records of the candidates, the facts (as troubling as this might be), ponder your own beliefs and values and decide what’s best for the nation’s future.

Allen Miller

Professor

Plant Pathology