The Agony and the Tragedy

As I sit and watch Iraq devolving into an outright civil war after the bombing of the Golden Mosque, I cant help but think that the United States' credibility, our position of incluence in the world, and our economic future are crumbling along with the walls of the ancient temple. Our country is gripped with a sense of helplessness as the drama takes its own course; we can only stand by and let the events play themselves out.

What an incredible irony that despite the $250 billion dollars spent on military actions in Iraq, our military and political leaders there can not even deploy our troops to try to restore order. They know that the presence of American troops on the streets will only feed the flames of the insurrection and hasten the coming civil war. Like Gulliver, the military giant is rendered helpless by an army of tiny insurgents.

Despite my plan to withdraw American troops to adjacent countries eight months ago (see below), I have no suggestions for success at this point. This is not a failure of imagination. Our efforts in the past three years since the invasion have only postponed the inevitable. As with a person who jumps from a plane with no parachute, the time for planning was before we invaded Iraq. Now, we can only watch the scenery fly by as we plunge toward earth and certain disaster.

The Good Ol' Days

Gee, remember when Iraq was a relatively stable Arab country with a leader capable of keeping the tribal and religious factions in line, maintaining order in the streets, and keeping Al Qaeda out of the country? Yes, there was a lot of sabre-rattling and inflammatory rhetoric, but for a decade, the country pretty much minded its manners toward its neighbors, largely because it had been de-fanged. Why, it seems like this was only three years ago!

I was never a fan of Saddam Hussein, but maybe Donald Rumsfeld had it right when he shook hands with the devil - the evil we know is better than the evil we don't know.

Our Consitution provides authority to raise taxes for the "common defence." There is nothing in the constitution that provides authority to go to war to go to war to establish democracy in another country. I think our founding brothers had it right. As did Colin Powell. If you break it, you own it.

I still maintain that the debacle in Iraq will be the most destructive foreign policy decision that our country has ever made.

(BTW, I find nothing in the constitution that states that if you borrow the money instead of collecting taxes, that it is okay to fight wars of agression.)

Fair and Balanced

Here is another one.

Bush's Chickens Come Home to Roost

It tickles me no end to see that Bush's political chickens have come home to roost in the ports of Newark and Baltimore.

After he has spent the last four years playing the terrorist card in every possible manner to scare up votes, his minions in the House and Senate are now beating him at his own game. As the '06 elections approach, they are kicking the lame duck (or is it a lame quail) to see who can prove herself/himself to be the absolutely most ruthless warrior in the war on terror.

And, of course, this rhetoric comes while neither the Congress nor the administration has done anything of substance to improve our dangerously weak port security. I learned the other day that while we inspect 5% of the containers that come into US ports, Hong Kong port authorities inspect 100%.

As is the case with "mad cow disease" inspections of cattle, our business community can not be bothered with such inconveniences as "homeland security." Apparently, neither can Congress nor the administration - until an election roles around.

Dennis Miller's Rant - "A Brief Overview of the Situation"

I was recently sent the “rant” below (in black, New Times Roman text ) via email. It has been navigating the internet for a couple of years now.

I found the hateful opinions and attitudes expressed in the piece to be detestable. The sender defended the piece, informing me that the “basic facts are true.” Indeed, just a few weeks ago, I heard a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show use the “football field” analogy as factual substantiation for his argument.

Because I despise hatemongering in any form, I decided to deconstruct this piece by providing a “fact-check.” Although I knew very little about the history of the Palestinian situation, I found that most of the claims of “fact” were inaccurate. Hopefully, correcting this misinformation may cause some people to focus more on information-based debate rather than emotional invective as they form their political opinions.

By providing this information, I do not mean in any way to justify the despicable and depraved violence that is perpetrated by some extremist Palestinians against the Israeli people. However, I firmly believe the use of misinformation, hyperbole, lies and specious arguments to incite hatred against others is wrong.

[Text in blue Arial font is by Bruce Hilpert.]

Dennis Miller's rant on the Middle East crisis.

This piece was not written by comedian Dennis Miller. It was actually written by Larry Miller and published in The Daily Standard on April, 22, 2002. Whoops! We are not off to a good start, are we?!!!

"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need. Don't thank me. I'm a giver. Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention.

This is an almost incomprehensible collection of contradictory statements that is specious at best and misleading at worst (or vice versa). First, let’s be clear that ALL words are “made up.” That is the nature of language. So it is not unusual that “Palestinians” is also made up. Yes, there are Palestinians; there have been Palestinians for thousands of years. “Palestinian” is not a modern invention. Israel has been called Palestine for more than 2000 years. Like many words, spellings and pronunciations change through time and also when they pass through different languages. Palestine and Palestinian are the anglicized version of the original term “Philistines” an ethnonym that is derived from the toponym “Philistia,” the region between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean. Prior to about 2000 years ago, it usually referred most specifically to the southern area of modern Palestine around what we now call “the Gaza Strip. The non-semitic Philistines occupied Philistia from about the 12^th century BC, arriving shortly after the Jews. When the Jews fled (or were driven from) the region in the second century AD, the Romans began referring to the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean as “Syria Palestina,” separating it from the region of Syria to the north. The Romans apparently adopted this term from the Greeks, whose word for the region was Palaistinêi. “Syria Palestina” was used for several centuries until the Arabs conquered Jerusalem in 638. It even persisted in some quarters even though the Ottoman Empire, which controlled the area for almost five centuries, did not officially use the term. When the British took control of the area from the Ottoman Empire in 1918, they revived the use of the Anglicized version, Palestine. This term originally referred to the areas now called Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan. In 1922, Britain partitioned Transjordan (east of the Jordan River), leaving Palestine and its residents, the Palestinians, in the region bounded by the Jordan River on the east, the Mediterranean to the west, Syria to the northeast, and Lebanon to the north.

Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

Again, this is confusing and muddled as well as blatantly false. The facts are so confused that it is almost impossible to be sure which war he is referring to. If it is the Jews’ land grab from the Phoenicians in the 13^th century BC after they fled Egypt, he is correct in stating that there were no “Palestinians” as the Philistines did not arrive until about a century later. But then, there was no Jordan at that time either. So his statement would still be incorrect.

If he is referring to the 1948 war, the Gaza Strip did not belong to Egypt; rather it was part of Palestine - the international zone controlled by the British that had been taken from the Turkish Ottoman Empire. In 1948, the West Bank was not under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (formerly TransJordan), as that part of the international zone had been separated from the original territory of Palestine. Again, the statement is false.

Regardless of the accuracy of his “facts,” one thing is very clear: there were, indeed, Palestinians who had occupied that specific area for centuries. The 1860 Ottoman Empire census indicates a population in the region of approximately 411,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Muslims. In 1914, the population was estimated at about 690,000, including 535,000 Muslims, 70,000 Christians, and 85,000 Jews. The bulk of this population, including even a small number of Jews, had lived there for many generations.

Following WWI there began a massive influx of Jewish Zionists, so that by 1940 they represented an estimated 30% of the population of Palestine( about 350,000 people), up from 11% at the end of the First World War. As the Jewish immigrants bought up farms, orchards and raw land from Palestinian landowners, they displaced many of the “peasant” Palestinians who worked the land and owned their orchards, but did not hold title to the land itself. In many cases, the Jewish settlers were not purchasing land with their own assets, but instead received financial backing from an international Zionist group called the Jewish National Fund.

By the 1930s, both the Christian and Muslim residents were so upset by the massive influx of immigrants, that the British called a halt to Jewish immigration and imposed measures to prevent the total economic takeover of Arab Palestine, a region that was intended to be an “international” zone, not a Jewish state. As more Jews fled persecution before WWII, tensions flared and violence broke out between Arab and Jewish Palestinians. After WWII, as Jewish Holocaust survivors flooded into the country, Great Britain looked for a way out of the morass. The UN developed a partition plan that divided Palestine into Jewish and Palesinian states, awarding 55% of the land to the Jews, who constituted 31% of the population and owned 7% of the land. The Muslims (60%) and Christians (8%) who had lived there for centuries, received 45% of their Palestinian homeland.

I confess that I was unable to determine whether the Zionists settlers did, indeed, grow oranges as big as basketballs.

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."

I googled this term and received the following entry: Hatemongering: Inciting others to hatred or prejudice. J If you can’t win an argument with facts, name-calling is always worth trying. To many people, it works even better than an argument!

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course-that's where the real fun is-but mostly they want Israel. Why?

For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it - for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on G-d's Earth, and if you've ever been around G-d's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

“they’re [Arabs] the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on G-d’s Earth”

This claim is almost as laughable as the construction of the author’s sentence. A quick review of the literacy rates of Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, UAE, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Sudan) compared to nations of mainland Africa show that the “blue-ribbon most illiterate” countries are undoubtedly sub-Saharan African countries. Among the Arab countries, 8 of 15 (53%) have a literacy rate of 70% or greater. 3 of 15 (20%) have a literacy rate of below 50%. Among non-Arab, mainland African countries, 22 of 44 (50%) have a literacy rate below 50% and 10 of 44 (23%) have a rate of 70% or greater.

Similarly, an analysis of Arab and African GDP Per Capita figures disproved the claim that Arabs are the “poorest” people on “G-d’s Earth.” Only two Arab countries had GDPPC levels $2000 or below, while 10 were above $5,000, most of them substantially higher. In non-Arab Africa, 37 of 44 countries have GDPPC of $2000 or less, while 4 have GDPPC of $5000 or more. (Figures from National Geographic Family Reference Atlas of the World, copyright 2002).

Unfortunately, I am not sophisticated enough to conduct an analysis of the relative “tribally backward” levels of the Arab countries of the world. Perhaps the author can provide a technical definition of this term.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

It makes me roll my eyes when someone who apparently has such limited intellectual capabilities that he has trouble with algebra, diminishes the accomplishments of others.

Generally speaking, the Arab region gave rise to the most sophisticated ancient civilizations of the world, including, but not limited to, the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, the Egyptian Pharaonic and the Phoenicians. The religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all born in the Arab region.

Historians Edward Burns and Philip Palph state that “The intellectual achievements of the …[Arabs] were far superior to any of which Christian Europe could boast before the twelfth century." They further concluded that Arabs "…were brilliant astronomers, mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and physicians. Despite their reverence for Aristotle, they did not hesitate to criticize his notion of a universe of concentric spheres with the earth at the center, and they admitted the possibility that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun... [The Arabs] were also capable mathematicians and developed algebra and trigonometry... [Arab] physicists founded the science of optics and drew a number of significant conclusions regarding the theory of magnifying lenses and the velocity, transmission, and refraction of light...[Arab] scientists were the first to describe the chemical processes of distillation, filtration, and sublimation...The accomplishments in medicine were just as remarkable...[The Arabs] discovered the contagious nature of tuberculosis, described pleurisy and several varieties of nervous ailments, and pointed out that the disease can be spread through contamination of water and soil. www.abbc.com/sindi/arab.htm#07. The legacies of their scientific discoveries live on today.

Arabs established the oldest universities in the world. The University of Qeirawan in Fez, Morocco was founded in 859, and the al-Azhar Mosque-University was established in 970 in Cairo. On the other hand, the oldest university in Europe is the University of Bologna in Italy, which was founded in 1088. The pride of the Arab Andalusian capital city of Cordoba was the outstanding enormous public library. Completed around 970 , this wonderful library alone had over 440,000 books, more than all of the books in all of France at the time. In addition to this gigantic public library, there were 69 other public libraries in Cordoba. These Arab libraries had been using paper for over 200 years at a time when the few Europeans who could read or write, were still using animal skins for writing.

Among the greatest Arab inventions were the clock, algebra, algorithm (logarithm), arithmetic, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, the decimal system, and the brilliant "zero." Of course, mathematics is the basis of most scientific disciplines. www.abbc.com/sindi/arab.htm#21. The Abbasid mathematician al-Biruni also made valuable contributions in astronomy by accurately determining the latitudes, longitudes, geodetic measurements, specific gravity, and the magnitude of the earth's circumference. In addition, the astronomer Ahmad al-Farghani published a comprehensive treatise on astronomy from which the famous Italian Alighieri Dante heavily borrowed both in his Vita Nuova and his Convivio. www.abbc.com/sindi/arab.htm#26.

Arab accomplishments in metallurgy made their name synonymous with the highest quality bronze and eventually steel – hence the name “Damascus steel.”

This could go on forever. Too bad Mr. Miller’s education was so limited that he could find only one contribution to include. . [ Information on Arab contributions is blatently copied or, in places plagiarized, from the website http://www.apomie.com/arabhistory.htm authored by Abdullah Mohammad Sindi. His original web references are retained in the text.]

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals. Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews – Combined population of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, UAE, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Sudan = 272,569,000 (Figures from National Geographic Family Reference Atlas of the World, copyright 2002). Total population of Israel (including Muslims) 6,603,000

Arab Countries as a football field: While he does not state that his analogy to a football field has a basis in fact, he clearly uses the spatial dimensions to create the impression that the contested land is a tiny slice compared to total Arab lands. The combined area of the countries cited above is 4,659,463 sq. miles. The area of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza, as far as I can tell) is 8019 s.m. This gives a ratio of Arab lands to Israeli lands of 581:1. A football field is 160’ x 300’. 1/581 of the 48,000sf of a football field is 82.6sf, an area considerably larger than a matchbook. One could imagine all Arab lands as a football filed and Israel as a pack of matches, but it would be exceedingly inaccurate and misleading.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshalling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

The author asks “Can anyone picture the Jews…” doing a number of violent and vile acts. I do not commonly picture Israelis strapping belts of razor blades to themselves. I can picture them frequently and routinely assassinating Palestinian leaders and destroying homes of Palestinians. I am sure, however, that many, many Arabs and Muslims can picture Israelis with razor blades and bombs as well as dancing for joy at the death of assassinated Palestinian leaders. Can “anyone” picture Jews marshalling their forces to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Yes, I can and I am confident that many Arabs can envision this.

The author’s final sentence of this paragraph is especially laughable. In 1981, Israel fighter bombers unilaterally attacked and destroyed an Iraqi nuclear power plant near Baghdad. Remember, this was a decade before the first Gulf War when Saddam Hussein attacked Israel with “Scud” missles. Unfortunately, this surprise attack that took place during peacetime precluded any “debate” over the validity and morality of a unilateral attack against a country that had not attacked Israel. Again, his facts are wrong.

Mr. Bush, G-d bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away. However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

Not to diminish the suffering of the Israeli people due to the despicable and depraved acts of Palestinian suicide bombers, but I fail to see how one can claim that Israel has suffered the equivalent of an “Oklahoma City bombing” every week for “months and months” and “then every day.” 168 people died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Do the math. This is hyperbole, not fact.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan. (Hey, wait a minute, that's actually not such a bad id . . . uh, that is, what a horrible thought, yeah, horrible.)"

Fact or fiction: the author would like to see the Palestinians wiped off the face of the earth.

Re: Good news in Iraq

Yesterday Condoleeza Rice testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Comm. One of the senators was confused by her glowing reports of the great improvements in infrastructure, in that previous testimony from the head of reconstruction (or someone like that) had previously shown that of all the services ( sewage, water, gasoline, electricity, schools, etc.), only electricity was above prewar levels. Yet, Condi testified that potable water delivery was at a higher level. He pressed her on this until she finally acknowledged that the water "capacity" had increased, although the level of "delivery" to households had actually decreased. So, this met our goal of rebuilding infrastructure capacity, even though the actual delivery of actual water to actual households to be drunk by actual people had actually declined.

This is the state of the "good news" in Iraq.

Why we have an immigration problem.

The Arizona Legislature's Republican majority refused to require employers to verify potential employees' legal status by using the federal government's database that make the process simple and easy.

The defeat of this bill belies the primary cause of our country's illegal immigration problems: business owners, corporations and other employers conspire to violate our country's immigration laws.

Despite testimony from the vice president of Bar-S foods about the simplicity and effectiveness of the verification system, the Senate Committee on Commerce and Economic Development killed the bill.

According to the story, Arizona Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Scott Peterson said his group is "unwilling to compromise."

This sad story gives a clear picture of both the cause of the immigration problem and the patriotism (or lack thereof)of those who support such a bill.

Why Cheney Kept Mum

Many have criticized VP Cheney and the White House propaganda machine for keeping quiet about Cheney's wounding of his hunting partner, as if he were trying to cover up the incident.

I am firmly convinced that this is not the case.

You see, Cheney is personally repsponsible for the killing and maiming of more than 20,000 young Americans and upwards of 50,000 innocent Iraquis. With that record, you can easily understand that accidentally peppering a hunting partner with birdshot is a trivial event that barely merits notice!

The Bush Doctrine

In his State of the Union address, President Bush continued to assure the masses that everything is great in Iraq. He also insists that we "move on" from a discussion of his reasons for waging war against Iraq and the innocent civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to a discussion of how we look to the future to rebuild the nation and constitute a democratic political system in that country.

He pointed to the recent Iraqi elections as the high-water mark for the "march of freedom," implying that democratic elections justify the destruction, violence and turmoil that has ensued from the Bush doctrine of America's God-given right to attack and destroy non-cooperative countries that stand in the way of American policies and ambitions.

While some may consider an examination of the rationales provided for the War in Iraq (not to be confused with the War on Terror) unproductive, an analysis of the fruits of this policy is germane. What is the state of affairs in Iraq after the last election? The country is slipping even more rapidly into civil war. As of this week, American troops are again engaged in firefights with Muqtada al Sadr's Shiite militia as animosity among Shiites toward the Americans and Sunnis increases along with the threat to their power represented by the growing representation of Sunnis in the political process. In the city of Kirkuk, one of the few areas of relative calm in the country, violence between ethnic Kurds, Turkomans and Arabs has increased dramatically. And, of course, Iran waits with increasing relish for the Shiite majority to take hold of the "still-not-formed" government so that it may increase its influence over its former enemy.

As we look toward the future of American interests in the Middle East, we must ask ourselves the campaign question"Are we better off than we were four years ago before the implementation of the Bush doctrine?" Are we more protected from terrorist attacks? Is our military stronger? Have American interests in the region (political stability, oil supply) been advanced? The answer to each of this questions is a resounding "NO." We have produced a failed state in Iraq that moves closer to Iran with each election. Rival factions wage an escalating, underground civil war while Iraqi citizens live a life of violence, terror, deprivation and hopelessness. Pentagon consultants have reported that our military is "broken" and we are unable to meet recruitment goals. The price of oil has more than doubled and Iraq seems incapable of increasing production. Feeling threatened with the American army at its border, Iran has stepped up its attempts to become a nuclear power and increased its belligerent rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Bush hints that he may implement Phase III of the Bush doctrine with an attack on Iraq. What untold chaos will such an action unleash?

Our country needs to face the fact that we do not enjoy a God-given right to run the world and that our interests must be protected according to a rational plan that accurately assesses a situation in a part of the world that is totally foreign to us. Documents prepared by Feith and Wolfowitz in the runup to the war belied a total lack of understanding of the political and cultural situation in Iraq. A faith-based foreign policy is no more effective than a faith-based science curriculum.

I agree with Bush that we can not change history and we must deal with the situation in Iraq as it now presents itself. However, as we look toward the future, it is necessarry for us to carefully evaluate the situation there and learn from our mistakes. The Bush doctrine, which justifies unilateral acts of aggression against countries that have not attacked us in order to impose a democratic form of government or preempt a perceived threat, is detrimental at best and suicidal at worst.

(For a discussion of the more pragmatic aspects of our future in Iraq, see the "Victory Strategy" entry below.)

A Victory Strategy

I wrote this last July, but it still seems oddly relevant today as the situation in Iraq is virtually the same as it was then.

Since our President's two point strategy for victory in Iraq ("stay the course" "until the job is done") seems to be so ineffective, I offer this as a strategy for victory.

1) Redeploy all American troops except for diplomatic detachments immediately. Currently, our troops are accomplishing nothing except for driving around with targets on their backs. They can not secure Iraq, Baghdad, or even the road to the airport. They are having no diminishing effect on the insurgents. Back in November Bush reported that we had trained something like 140,000 Iraqi police and soldiers. Leave them the materiel and retain detachments of our coalition partners to continue training and combat supervision.

The insurgents have repeatedly stated that they will continue their attacks on the Iraqi people until the American occupation force leaves. In addition, many Iraqis blame the Americans for the insurgent attacks. Lets call the insurgents bluff. If they continue, the Iraqis can deal with it as what it is: a civil war. If it turns into a war of militias, the Sunnis will be defeated. Then Iraq can exercise their democratic freedom to creat a Shia Islamic state.

In Afghanistan, after one year we drew down troops and special ops forces to approximately 1/3 of the previous level. Granted that these forces were transferred to participate in the war in Iraq, but the fact that we have not increased these troop levels in the face of a rising Taliban indicates that the administration believes our efforts there are adequate and effective.

2) Retain a strike force of 25 - 50,000 troops in Kuwait to support Iraqi government troops as needed. On the rare occasion that we have actually attacked insurgents (Fallujah and the two strikes on the northwestern town) we used relatively small detachments (5-10,000 troops). One airborne division and a Special Forces group should do the trick. Air support comes from carriers.

3) Turn all reconstruction money over to the Iraqi government to rebuild infrastructure. Let them administer the contracts as they see fit. They may indeed let contracts to non-American (yes, even French!) contractors, but these non-American contractors will be able to get the job done with considerably fewer security problems because they are not American. Of course, this will obviate one of the strategic objectives of the war (contracts for American contractors such as Halliburton and KBR) but Cheney's buddies will have to live with this. If the Iraq government is not capable of handling this process after two years, they never will be.

4) Pay for the war. Remember, "Freedom isnt Free." Wars cost money. Pay for the war by rescinding Bush's last two tax cuts.

5) Increase budgets by 100% for anti-terrorist, covert intelligence operations in the CIA and FBI each year for the next five years. With all our new-found allies in Iraq, we should have no trouble recruiting willing covert operatives to infiltrate terrorist groups around the world. THIS is the fight we need to be fighting, not invading countries and engaging in decades-long campaigns of nation-building. Read my lips: No nation building!

6) Deploy troops withdrawn from Iraq along the border with Mexico. Change legislation as needed to authorize this, if necessary. Our Homeland Security efforts have ignored this, our nation's greatest security threat. AND, begin to enforce again our laws against illegal hiring so that we can begin to stem the tide of this dangerous illegal immigration. Recently I read a government report that indicated that there were about 497 employer arrests in 1998 and only THIRTEEN in 2003. What is this all about? Illegal workers are not a security threat, but as long as we are allowing 1,000,000 per year to stream across our porous border, terrorists have easy access.

7) Dont invade any more countries that have not attacked us. Please.