I wonder what the "military brat" elected U.S. Senator from Virginia, a Democrat named James or Jim, thinks about your comprehensive and exhaustive prescription for improvements to our U.S. Military. Only a military officer who has been elected to public office, it seems, is entitled to offer an opinion, since remember: our national military draft has ended, our military has been "privatized" or what I call turned into a mercenary army, and we have a newly established tradition in our civilian run White House to utterly and routinely ignore, discount or discharge military advice from top officers.

So then, as it would seem to me, the White House or U.S. Presidency has gone off in it's own direction, and the U.S. Military has been "driven off a cliff" in so many ways, you cannot even tote them up for an accounting or resolution, let alone a critique or a prescription for change for the better.

My perspective on all this has been informed at least in part, from reading former NBC Newscaster and acerbic political observer David Brinckley's excellent book, "Washington Goes to War" about the transmogrification of a sleepy little Southern town into the great locus of Empire we know today as Washington DC. In addition, I would commend to your attention the multi-volume set of books authored by Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, addressing topically as well as historically the U.S. Senate. Senator Byrd is inimitably the best observer and chronicler of changes and traditions in our federal government we have today, still alive and in a position of power politically. I would encourage all Americans to review his speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate in the run-up to our current Iraq military misadventure.

The strength of America has always been found in our peaceful ways and thriving populace. While we have military capacity, it is derived from other strengths of family, community, and complementary local and state governance. America has traditionally been a quite dynamic and fluid place and people, unhindered by special interests, ideologies and corporations as we find today. In short, our politicians and our government did not pay mealy mouthed "lip service" to our interests as workers, voters, and citizens, as they do now, while working assiduously in diametric opposition to our own interests as Americans in so many ways.

Investing in people always pays off far better than investments in war or war making capacity. I am no Neville Chamberlain (the famed British "appeaser" of Nazi expansionism in Europe) but I do think American powers of diplomacy and persuasion are atrophied from lack of use due to the hubris and single-minded, Ahab-like pursuit of war by our current Bush White House. All the American resources being siphoned into this Iraq war, not to mention Afghanistan, represent a squandering of American resources on the federal level at least equal to, if not greater than, those resources squandered on Vietnam. One likes to think of the money, or should I say, "blood and treasure" being well-spent. But ultimately, I do not want to kid either myself or others as to the economies of warfare. It is a waste. How else to describe it? It is not enough to have opposed the opening of hostilities in the first instance, since in part we are six years out from the start of Gulf War Two, or World War Three, or whatever you care to call it: "War in Perpetuity against no identified State Enemy" would be my own turn of phrase. Do not offer, as Barack Obama does, your six-year old assertion of what you are against; Tell me instead, what you are for, Today.

Another reason to ask for more than political rubric, is that this conflict commenced from organic policies and geopolitical determinations made by American politicians long before 9/11 took place, in my own view. I have catalogued them as best I can elsewhere in a previous post here on Slate.

I would comment, that I do not ever seem to like military assertions of power whether by our own American military, or by our so-called American "allies" or "friends." I mean, look at Robert Mugabe of Africa today, for one example of many.

It is my own view, that America would be far better served, to use "honey" rather than "vinegar" or the carrot rather than the stick in seeking to win friends and influence folks in foreign lands. We should be learning about their languages, cultures, and values; we should be watching their movies; we should be inviting them here to America, and visiting with them where they live. We should be engaged in peaceful and cooperative problem solving.

Further, we should be revamping our own culture, values, infrastructure and institutions both democratic and republican. To anyone my age or older - I was born in 1954 - the loss of what I refer to as American Dynamism or that 20th Century, Greatest Generation, G.I. Bill "Can-Do" spirit is quite striking. Today, most of our scientists, inventors, engineers and academics work for either the federal government, or for big business. This has to be quite stultifying, and indeed, most of our successful personnel in these areas, are brought along to their careers, 50 percent I think, by small, independent, privately endowed and functioning liberal arts colleges nationwide. While there may be strings attached to some of their finances, the fact remains in that operative word, "Independent" or "Private."

Rather than federalizing everything, including education at all levels, we Americans should be establishing 1) funding umbrella organizations for independent activities; and 2) establishing independent or peer reviewed accountability programs in the professions and business communities, to recognize excellence and productive results. What I am trying to get at, is we need to bring back that American dynamism that built our Country.

Maybe we could forgo media saturation in our homes and our culture, and cultivate the reading and writing of good books and magazines and newspapers, rather than the corporate media pablum so evident today in just about every medium of discourse out there, save for this Internet - until further notice. This could involve subsidies, school reading programs, scholarships for editors and writers and readers, and maybe travelers and chroniclers as well.

Maybe military research could be channeled or spun off into peaceful pursuits, such as for one example, turning our American "Star Wars" space defense program into a means by which the Sun's energy from space can be harvested and transhipped via orbiting Earth straddling satellites, to be used here on Earth to power our Arthur C. Clarke future civilization, absent oil tankers and wars for oil and other resources in the usual game of national rivalries and belligerence.

Certainly, I would like to see the FutureGen coal fired demonstration power plant in Mattoon, Illinois - just outside of St. Louis, Missouri - kickstarted back into our U.S. energy picture. This critical demonstration plant for future electric generation from coal, is extremely important for America's energy future and strategic interests, since we are "the Saudi Arabia" of Coal, and since this new technology power plant saves the environment from CO2 emissions.

I would like to see Canada's HydroQuebec or successor organization taken up on its previous offer to provide clean, safe, reliable hydroelectric power to America's electric grid in the Northeast and Midwest, by way of proven and North American technologies. Why not?

Also, I would like to see the GE desalination plants currently being built in North Africa, copied and seeded around the world at strategic locations, as needed, funded by way of trans-national World Bank like financing authorities.

We should find ways to encourage more use of geothermal energy sources which, after the initial or startup investment, provide "free" or unlimited energy over time.

Finally, we should follow the examples of the State of Illinois, France, Japan and others and built the latest generation nuclear power plants prolifically throughout North, Central and South America, since the technologies are new, improved, safe and effective. Call it "the New Monroe Doctrine" if you will. I think such endeavors would have an inevitable military component, while at the same time being immensely beneficial and productive of human progress.

Finally, I think it should be recognized, that you are never going to develop or invest successfully in a worthwhile officer corps during peacetime, because officers of mettle and worth are formed in the crucible of warfare. As such, you can invest in educating Americans of ability and able qualifications through military or other academies, and then squadron or otherwise parcel them out periodically to varied conflicts or trouble spots around the globe, under American commands of course, to fix stubborn military problems or conflicts, while learning to be better officers and gentlemen, our finest and best sent as ambassadors of true progress and forward thinking, wherever needed around the globe. This would be in contrast to shipping hardware and high-tech as the panacea to all human conflicts and controversies. We need to get back to grounded, people-to-people, down-to-earth diplomacy and nation-building skill sets. Further, to smooth our way, it must be made crystal clear, to all Americans and our friends and enemies everywhere on the planet, that no individual or group is permanently exiled outside the parameters of our hope for change, progress and a happy future for all who have a stake in it. If we broaden our American mindset to encompass our very own historical experience, as well as the cultural and historical experiences of other folks, we should easily prove to be as successful as the Ancient Romans were, in establishing and promoting a Pax Romana, or Pax Americana, around the Globe, one chapter at a time, to the benefit of all people everywhere.