"AMERICA UNITED!" "SMOKE 'EM OUTTA THEIR HOLES, HUNT 'EM DOWN, AND GIT 'EM!" "THE SLEEPING GIANT HAS BEEN AROUSED!" and "REMEMBER THE POSTER IN THE OLD WEST: 'WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE!'"

I have a question to all the war hawks out there: When you listen and look at our Commander-in-Chief, do you really think THIS is the guy who is going to kick some major league ass? I'm just asking all you conservative drum beaters out there -- man, you must be *embarrassed* that this is the best we have to offer.

I know we are all supposed to be supportive of Mr. Bush, at the moment, but has it dawned on anyone that he is not, in fact, the "president?" I hate to bring up a thorny subject, but this man is lost when left on his own to compose a sentence.

But occasionally his batteries run out -- and he goes off on some unintelligible tangent "make no mistake mumble mumble". You can see his handlers desperately trying to cut him off and whisk him away. You watch in awe and you ask the question that none of us even wants to contemplate right now, and that no one will dare to ask, so I might as well take the hit and be the one: THIS is the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful country on earth? Who amongst you feels secure tonight? What enemy is going to be afraid of *this* guy?

Bush keeps calling what we are in "a war." Has anyone told him that the more he keeps using this word, the more HE puts US in jeopardy? A "war" implies that two sides are participating in an action to kill as many of the other side as possible. Bush and the pundits use the word like it's a one-sided deal, like we're going to be the only ones doing the bombing. War means we bomb them, then they bomb us. That's what war is, you idiots. We strafe Afghanistan, then the terrorists drop a canister of chemical weapons in the New York subway. We send in a group of commandos and wipe out a camp of Muslims, they take out the Sears Tower.

All of you who are screaming for war: are you prepared to pay the price, to take thousands of more casualties? Because, my big, macho-talking friends, THAT is what this kind of war would be like. America is a complex and open society with a massive and intricate infrastructure that is fragile and vulnerable and susceptible to easy attack and disruption. IT CAN BE BROUGHT DOWN WITH A BOXCUTTER. Let me repeat that:

IT CAN BE BROUGHT DOWN -- IT CAN BE BROUGHT TO A TOTAL STANDSTILL -- BY A BOXCUTTER!

Nearly a week with no stock market, no commercial television, no professional sports, three days with no planes in the air (for the first time since 1911), no airports open, the country essentially shut down. A week later and the phone lines still don't all work. A boxcutter, folks! Do not be misled into thinking he with the biggest missile is going to win this "war."

We will never be able to protect all of us from this kind of terrorism. Back and forth, more buildings bombed, more planes downed, more innocent American lives lost. When does this end? After we have killed every terrorist? When exactly is THAT scheduled to happen? Or is it just when we kill Osama bin Laden, *then* we win the war? Are you serious? We couldn't even assassinate Hitler during a massive World War that lasted 6 years!
[b] Bush now says this is "a war against the evil people in the world." Oh, really? THAT war! Yeah, we should be able to defeat "evil," oh, sometime in the next millennium or two.[/b] Get a grip. "War" is not going to get the justice we demand or make us more safe. You know it and I know it. There is a different way to go, and I will lay it out in a later letter, but to simplify it for now and put it in a nutshell, it goes like this:

One billion people on this planet have no clean drinking water. Two billion have no electricity. Three billion have never made a phone call from their home. We have the money and the people-power to alter ALL of this. We also have the moral imperative to stop supporting repressive regimes and corporations who exploit these people.

When we decide to help improve these billions of people's lives, we will pull the rug out from under the terrorists who need those they send to their deaths to be poor and exploited and angry at us. The multi-millionaire bin Laden isn't going to give up HIS life!
When all the people in the Middle East have food on the table, a decent home, a good job, and democratic control over their own lives, who among them is going to be convinced to sacrifice his life by crashing himself into a tall office building?

Sure, there will always be those who go insane and kill without reason. The British saw that in a Dunblane schoolyard, we saw it in Oklahoma City. There will always be religious fanatics willing to kill and be killed because they believe God has so ordered them. Ask the families of the assassinated women's clinics' doctors in Buffalo and Florida about those willing to commit evil in the name of religion in America.
There IS a way to protect us from further attack, to lift the rest of the world out of its misery, but it requires some smarts and some guts, two things in short supply in Washington these days.

We are now driving across Ohio toward West Virginia and Pennsylvania. On the radio, NPR is running a history report on Osama bin Laden. We are told that he comes from a wealthy family and that they are the main builders for the Saudi royal family. They've remodeled palaces and built holy sites. Their construction projects are everywhere. Kathleen turns to me, and with one word sums up the kind of low-life we are talking about here.

"Contractors," she says. "Bin Laden is a contractor." Indeed, it all made sense. Michael Moore mmflint@aol.com