Back in the days of the American Revolution, the British soldiers, dressed in red coats with white bandoliers across their chests, lined up in ranks, one standing, and another in front of them, kneeling. They would fire and reload alternately. That was the way wars were fought.

The problem was that the uncultured and unschooled Colonists, who had never learned how to fight a proper war, didn't line up in ranks—in plain sight—and fire in relays. They dressed in greens and browns, making them hard to see as they hid in the underbrush and behind trees, and fired, not in volleys, but individually, when they spotted a likely target:   someone standing in plain sight, made very visible by his red coat, and providing a handy white "X" in the middle of his chest to aim at. Damned un-British, those Colonists! Fighting a war like that just wasn't—well—cricket!   Harumph! And furthermore, pshaw!!

You can't fight a bunch of guerillas—or terrorists—or insurgents—by going after them with a regular army, even if your army no longer looks like it belongs on a chess board.

Obviously, we didn't learn that lesson in Vietnam.

And we're not learning it again in Iraq.

At least the Commander-in-Chief (who has never fought any kind of war), and his minions, and the Pentagon, haven't learned it. But it would appear that a lot of the American public, along with a fair number of senators and representatives, including a lot of Republicans, are beginning to get the clue.

I think that on this one, Bush just run into a brick wall with a mighty SPLAT!!

Wile E. Coyote used to do that a lot.

Don Firth

P. S. And Teribus, the United States will recover just fine, after we get out of that mess that the current batch of crooks and idiots in Washington. D. C. got the country into, and then purge said crooks and idiots. Granted, we're liable to get a whole different batch of crooks and idiots, but that can't help but be an improvement!