Article: He follows his father, but with shorter strides. –Virgil

Iraq:

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. - John Adams

In 1945 The United States became a "Super Power" with the development of the Nuclear Bomb. Since 1945 the United States has never won a war.

Prior to that time the United States always fought wars of great principles that were directly related to our own self interests. The United States never fought a Pre-emptive War or war of choice. In the conduct of war the United States was willing to accept huge casualties and was willing to inflict enormous casualties on the part of our enemies. These casualties were both military and civilian.

Since 1945 the possession of the Bomb and the existence of oceans separating us from potential enemies in Europe and Asia gave us a false sense of security and invulnerability.

We began to fight "politically correct" wars.

We settled for a truce in what we referred to as a "police action" in Korea. Today after giving billions of dollars in "aid" to North Korea this third member of the so-called axis of evil has the bomb.

We left Vietnam after 50,000 Americans died. Communist Vietnam did not change its politics but now enjoys Most Favored Nation status and will soon be admitted to the World Trade Organization.

The U.S. underwent months of "malaise" while U.S. citizens were held hostage in our own Embassy in Iran and did nothing.

The United States did nothing when 200 marines died at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon. America stood idly by as our embassies were bombed in Africa and a Somali thug and his militia killed our airmen. The United States did nothing when the U.S. Cole was bombed. An earlier era would have proclaimed: Remember the Cole.

Another "Super Power", the Soviet Union, went to war in Afghanistan and lost in this poverty stricken third world country. The U.S. celebrated this loss by the "Evil Empire" but failed to understand why the Soviets lost and learn from it as the British had in an earlier century: "You can rent an Afghan but you cannot buy one." Had the United States recognized this truism it would have used its own forces to destroy Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban at Torah Bora rather than farming the job out to the Afghan warlords.

Like the Soviet Union the United States boasts of capturing Afghan cities and destroying the enemy infrastructure. This ignores the fact that Afghanistan has no infrastructure and is not an urban based society. The traditional Mongol method of warfare has always been not to face the enemy in an all out battle but ever to retreat and bide their time. Mongols have always surrendered their cities. Mobility, terror and defeating the will of the enemy were the greatest weapons for the Mongols and are the weapons they are using today.

In addition the Afghans are experiencing bumper crops in the growth of poppies which are finding their way into Western Europe and the United States. The U.S. does nothing to destroy the cultivation of poppies. The U.S. is a long way from victory in Afghanistan and the War on Drugs.

Nuclear War is and will be an ever present danger in the world but the Wars since 1945 have not been nuclear. They have been modeled after the Battle of Stalingrad I.e. All out urban, or in the case of Vietnam, Jungle warfare.

This is the war the United States is seemingly unable to win in Iraq and Israel was unable to win in Lebanon. Not only did Israel not win but they have yet to achieve the most minimum goal of obtaining the release of their two soldiers held hostage.

This is the same Israel who defeated several Arab nations in the 7 Day War.

Now, like the United States, Israel is paralyzed and seems impotent and incapable of victory. This is truly Shock and Awe!

Why can't they win? They are fighting politically correct wars. They will not accept casualties on the part of their military and they refuse to use overwhelming force to incur massive casualties upon their enemy and upon the civilian populations that support them.

At the end of WWII the United States initiated the Marshall Plan. This was a benefit in the reconstruction of Europe and a strong Western Europe provided a buffer to communist expansion. Importantly economic aid was not given to our enemies until and unless the United States obtained unconditional surrender from our enemies beforehand.

Today the United States is rebuilding Iraq before obtaining victory. Millions of tax payer dollars are going into the reconstruction of Iraqi cities including those controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr. This is the same Shia militia leader who killed a number of U.S. military in Fallujah and still has an outstanding Iraqi warrant charging him with murder.

America has also pledged aid to Lebanese cities and town bombed by Israel. We are giving this aid despite the fact the Hezbollah has not surrendered or abandoned the areas being rebuilt.

Neither Iraq nor Saddam Hussein attacked the WTC. Osama Bin Laden and members of Al-Qaeda with support from the Taliban attacked the WTC.

As a matter of fact Osama and Saddam were mortal enemies. Osama detested the secular government run by Saddam in Iraq and offered to use his mujahideen fighting forces to remove Saddam from power when Saddam invaded Iraq.

Saddam detested the religious zeal of Osama and feared the establishment of a theocracy by the Shia dominated Iran. Saddam went to war with Iran losing tens of thousands in casualties. He was supported in this war materially by both the United States and Israel. Saddam even used chemical weapons (a form of WMD) against the Iranians. The chemical weaponry and know how was provided by the United States.

The United States and Israel at that time viewed Saddam as the buffer between Iran and its control over the Arabian Peninsula. The tragedy of the current war in Iraq is that the real enemy (Iran) is stronger and Osama and the Taliban have safe refuge in northwestern Pakistan. Our Pakistani "allies" will not allow U.S. troops to pursue the members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban into Pakistani territory.

Initially the rationale for choosing to go to war with Iraq was to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction and faulty intelligence from the CIA was blamed. Nevertheless George Tenant who headed the CIA under both Clinton and Bush Administrations was rewarded with the highest civilian honor this nation can bestow: The Medal of Freedom. With over 2500 dead American soldiers and billions of taxpayer dollars spent one can only wonder what medal Mr. Tenant would have received had he been right in his intelligence.

Today we are told that the United States cannot leave Iraq because it would leave the nation in chaos and that a member of the Evil Axis (Iran) would dominate Iraq and prove an even more mortal danger to Israel. This brings us full circle. Saddam Hussein (a Sunni) hated the Iranians (The Shia) and even went to war with them willing to lose tens of thousands of Iraqis to defeat Iran. He even used chemical weapons of mass destruction which were provided by the United States. Saddam was the buffer the United States and Israel could rely upon to protect the Arabian Peninsula from Iranian aggression.

It is true that Saddam is unsavory but compared to the 300 years of Ottoman rule over Iraq he was a breath of fresh air and no worse an ally to the United States than Joseph Stalin was in defeating Hitler. With Saddam there was no chaos unlike today where the United States cannot even secure the highway from Bagdad Airport into the city.

Woodrow Wilson failed dismally making the world "safe for democracy" and it appears that in trying to make the Middle East a democracy that President Bush will fail as well. American Foreign policy in the Middle East is abysmally ignorant of the history of Islam and the fact that while Islam may hold Christians and Jews in disdain that the Prophet Mohammed held Apostates in even greater contempt. This is exactly how the Shia and Sunni view each other as Apostates. American foreign policy should take advantage of this fact.

The riots in French cities last summer by Moslem dissidents are probably a forerunner of the urban warfare that will infest Europe in years to come. They are patterned after Stalingrad, Bagdad and Beirut.

Queen Elizabeth I was often encouraged to go to war with Spain and/or France by her advisors. She generally declined going to war against them feeling that: "The outcome of War is a most uncertain thing."

Immigration:

There is no place for the hyphen in our citizenship... We are a nation, not a hodge-podge of foreign nationalities. We are a people, and not a polyglot boarding house. -T. Roosevelt

President Bush is fond of saying that he believes in the "Rule of Law" yet he does not secure our borders which is his Constitutional duty. He justifies the War in Iraq by telling the American public that our young men are dying in Iraq so the terrorists will not attack American soil with weapons of mass destruction. Despite this grave threat to our national security the President refuses to secure our borders and continues to allow illicit drugs to pour through our borders. This policy of appeasement ruins the lives of millions of Americans, is expensive to the taxpayer and represents a decline in western civilization. While millions of American families go without health care insurance the illegal immigrant gets free health care, public education and Social Security Benefits. This hypocrisy is not lost upon the average American. There is a reason why Joe Arpaio is the most popular sheriff in the nation. Most Americans do love their country and place a higher value upon American Citizenship than our President and most members of Congress do.

Of course a low value of American citizenship is not to be entirely unexpected since apart from the "under God" issue Americans for the most part are never required to pledge allegiance to the United States.

Spending:

Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. - Benjamin Franklin

President Bush often says he is proud to call himself a "Fiscal Conservative". This is simply patently untrue. President Bush has not vetoed a single spending bill and has spent more money than any president since LBJ. Billions have been spent on the War in Iraq which the United States will lose. Billions did not help the victims of Hurricane Katrina nor does it help increase scores in math and science among the youth of America. Americans wonder if our leaders should offer more than more spending as a cure for our ills.

Betrayal:

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied. - Rudyard Kipling

President Bush professes to be "Pro-Life" yet despite Republicans controlling both houses of Congress for the first time in over 50 years and having the added advantage of having added two conservative judges to the Supreme Court he did not introduce on single piece of legislation to overturn Roe V. Wade or any other conservative social legislation. He betrayed his evangelical base.

Corruption:

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. -George Washington

The Republican Party becomes a laughing stock when they claim to be the party of "Family Values" yet has so many of its members indicted and convicted for criminal conducts. Corruption is particularly repugnant when committed during a time of War. Both parties are guilty of corruption and Americans are tired of watching democrats and republicans blame each other for what's wrong with this nation. It is like two lepers arguing with each other about which of them has the most fingers left.

Epilogue:

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth. -Abraham Lincoln

Going forward to 2008 my hunch is that the 2006 elections showed that America is Conservative at heart. I do not mean Conservative not in the Evangelical sense which implies the establishment of a theocracy but Conservative after the pattern of John Adams.

This is our Hope which lies within Pandora's Box fulfilling the words of the Poet:

"Hope rules a land for ever green:
All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen
Are confident and gay;
Clouds at her bidding disappear;
Points she to aught? - The bliss draws near,
And Fancy smoothes the way." -Wordsworth