AS A BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY magazine, we don't normally address politics or international relations, but as I write this editorial—and even as thousands of men and woman risking their lives—no other topic seems as important. Is this a war for principles—to defend us against future attacks from likes of Saddam Hussein, or is it simply a gamble for oil? We may never fetch an answer for this or the innumerable other questions that we may have. There will always be debate. But then leadership is not always a popularity contest. Leadership is about believing in something and having the courage to go through with it. President Bush has my vote for leadership and his decision to go to war. It's not a popular war—as we can see from daily news of anti-war protests both in U.S. and abroad. The U.N. Security Council did not vote for it. But as we all know, you can’t always run everything by committees. Even small companies need strong leaders to make them succeed. The whole question of “for” or “against” war comes down to a question of trust. Whom do we trust? A Saddam Hussein who fought Iran and attacked Kuwait in the past, and has been playing games with U.N. inspectors for 10 years now? Or do we trust President Bush, our elected president, who has much more information—that cannot be shared with general public—about threats from Hussein and other dubious nations? My trust is with President Bush, and my hopes and prayers that this is a short and successful war.

Enterprise Security Sells
Since 9/11, the only area of technology spending that has not gone through budget cuts is security related products and services. Are we building really good tools now? Or, like how Naren Gupta questions in his column (page 14), are mercenaries preying on the nation's fears? In our February event on Security for the Enterprise, we saw heated discussions on issues like security granularity, transactions, application level, and so on. This month, we decided to cover this space. There are great opportunities. And there are numerous opportunities. Intelligent customers will—at least this time around—dictate how we take advantage of these opportunities. Let us look forward to a safe, secure United States.