Bobert - Can Bush procede without blowing folks up? Well, I think he CAN, even if I don't think that's his desire -- and fortunately we seem to be somewhat moving in that direction. I'm sorry, I don't buy Teribus' theory that this is all just a deep strategy dreamed up by the Prez. Let's face it, the majority of Americans have seen through this latest gambit, despite huge amounts of PR thrown at the subject, and he'd be a bigger fool than he is to actually attack with so little support. I wouldn't put it past 'em to try another Incubator Baby lie to drum up support, tho.

I think a more relevant question is how much is Bush the Lesser interfering with the business at hand. Is he an idiot? Or is he a diversion?

T - I realize that we spend $400 billion a year on the military (er, that's what I was saying, actually.) My point was that we are willing to do so, but the money and time we invest into peace is pathetic. As ye sow, an ye shall reap.

I also know that homing devices and what-not are part of the development process. We're still a LONG way off from a successful system. (I do object to the press releases that talk about how well it's working, when it isn't, yet.) Some folks say it can't be done, but I think that eventually the owlies will get it. They just have to invent whole categories of new technology first. It'll take a bunch of money and a bunch of time.

But how much money and time is really being spent on preventing "rogue" nations from attcking us? IMO, chest-thumping and threatening to overthrow governments increases the risk, not decreases it. In Iraq, we are (well, were) treantening to oust Saddam if he didn't comply, and if he did comply... we were going to oust him anyway. As motivation, that stinks -- it seems designed to cause Iraq to refuse to cooperate so we can attack.

In short, it's counterproductive to threaten war in order to keep the peace. Someone mentioned "Red Dawn" in another thread -- in the script the White House is trying to get us to believe, the teenagers would have been celebrating in the streets at having been liberated instead of fighting back.

I have one more BIG item for your agenda. We can't address funding of terrorists without the US agreeing to cease funding terrorism. We call them "rebels," but in reality they perform terrorists acts using American training and American supplies. We can't achieve accord in the Middle East without ceasing to fund and train groups which try to overthrow the foreign governments at the negotiating table.