LH:
Nice post twice above. My compliments to your father and his part for the Allies. My father was posted to the Pacific Islands, and after VJ Day he was in the occupation of Japan.

I am a big fan of Canada in spite of their opposition to the current American efforts overseas. You guys are true friends and your opinion is your opinion. You're sort of like the French only sane.

By your lights I am a strong Zionist, so there we are. I don't think our problems with the current terrorists are over Israel, however. I believe that rather than the US being perceived as a supporter of Israel, Israel is perceived as being an American incursion into the Islamosphere. I am all for it.

I still think your credulosity as between plausible and implausible is at a different 'set point' from mine.

I am not a knee-jerk supporter of all American policy. I was only recently enlightened into the sad history of the US in toppling Mossadegh (in Iran), and my first reaction is we had no business doing that and we set the stage for a lot of grief. I am still mostly ignorant there, though, and one can't go back in time.

In keeping with the title of this thread I urge people to take a look at Pat Buchanon's recent work: "Where The Right Went Wrong" and a very interesting book by Thomas Barnett of the U.S. Naval War College, very much a 'big picture' effort: "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century". He's been making the rounds of the book tours and I agree with what I heard him saying re: Iraq, that there were and are good reasons to be there, but there have been some tactical mistakes made.

Let the Shire remain the Shire. We may all need to go there for a break.