There is a deafening silence in the election campaign about

the two trillion dollar hole in the American economy because of the starting and keeping the Iraq war going.

I am surprised at there not being a devastating popular uproar against the Bush administration.

Let alone in the election campaign.

Christ- what planet have you inhabited for 7 years? Bush has been lambasted by the press and every liberal douche bag from “he stole the election… twice” to “he’s a war criminal etc..” for seven years. The criticism has been relentless. I’m not saying that criticism is bad, but you can’t honestly say there hasn’t been uproar- been on a college campus lately? Anyway, the reason there isn’t a massive public movement is that not everyone shares your opinion on this matter ( I for example can’t think of anything I would rather spend my tax dollars on! I look forward to tax time now ever since April 2003.) The other reason is that Bush is out in a year, so what’s the point. Barak will be in there this Nov and everything will be right in the world again and you can sleep easy. Isn’t democracy fun?

Bush has been HOUNDED?? By whom? He looks quite comfy in his bubble. The hard part will be when he doesn't have his own jet and his own helicopter to take him to his private resort wehre he has hot and cold running servants. We treat presidents like this, and we wonder why they lose contact with reality. That's why it's always a mistake to elect anyone with a privileged background, like Bush or Kerry: they slip right into the bubble and soon don't even know it's there.

And you LIKE having your money pissed down a rat hole like this? I bet you were one of the ones who LOVED the ten million we spent on Ken Starr. But doesn't it bug you now that Bush will be gone and Obama or HRC will take over and Iran will officially win the war they actually won back when Bush put Bremer The Asshole in charge of the Green zone and not much else. The creation of a sectarian civil war: your tax dollars at work.

Actually it doesn’t bother me at all that Obama or Hillary will be in office next year. That’s the way this lovely democracy works. Oh, and I could really care less about the Clinton/Monica thing and no, I didn’t like spending money on that. Anyways, whether Obama or Hillary are in office this great country will keep rolling on. They question is, when one of them does get in the white house, what are you guys gonna do when they stay in Iraq (cause you know they’re gonna)? Will you be outraged? Or will you support them still. I’ll support whomever can win the global war on terror Democrat or Republican.

But now we're on to the really divisive question: Through occupying a secterian Arab country that is itching to destroy itself so that one sect can power over the other, how are we winning the global war on terror?

It really looks like we are simply plowing a field that isn't even ours. Historically, we've usually just chosen a farmer for the field, but we couldn't do that this time (we had to remove our own farmer).

And, looking at the original reasons for Al Qaedi's rise to power (the growing popular Arab outrage at the US's meddling in the Middle East), I don't see how we're doing anything but boosting their abilities to recruit terrorists.

There is growing outrage from Iraqis now against terrorist groups like AQ. So, they don’t all hate the US, if they did we would have a much bigger fight on our hands. Also, Saddam was not out “Farmer”. Did we support him against Iran, sure but he was no more our farmer or our creation than was Stalin during WWII. We and the UK aided Stalin to a much higher degree than Saddam. The truth is, we support unsavory characters ei. Stalin to fight other unsavory characters (Hitler) but that doesn’t invalidate the removal of them at a later time when they become a bigger problem. Your last point on recruitment is always brought up and becomes circular logic, “if we fight them they will get mad and more will be recruited so we can’t fight them..” So then, if we don’t fight them they will go away? I don’t think so. As long as the US is the dominant power on the globe there will be challengers. If not Arab terrorists, there will be North Korea or Hugo over in Venezuela or Putin in Russia. What is your solution to global terrorism? Isolationism? That didn’t work in the 30s and I don’t think it will work now. I’m not comparing the terrorist to the Axis powers (Although the Japanese strategy was remarkably similar to the terrorist. Make seemingly insignificant pieces of land like Iwo Jima or Iraq extremely costly and cause the American public to loose heart for the war. In fact, I often wonder if the Japanese would have won or at least got the US to agree to a conditional surrender if in the 40s there was 24hr news media, camera phones and the internet.) The over all concept is the same though, they wield power by terrorizing the public (like the Nazis) and acting so mean and nasty as to make free nations wet their pants rather than take the fight to them. Unfortunately, fighting them is hard and ugly but completely necessary.

I couldn't disagree more with you. "The dominant power on the globe" is a post that no country has ever held forever. And if there is a dominant power on the globe now, it would be China - not because it has a winning record in wars, but because of its intimidation, its reputation, and its potential. Your strategy for dealing with terrorism is founded on your incorrect belief that we are the "Dominant Power," but we aren't (Oh, we are a great power, but "dominant" is the operative word - hey, you chose it). We are better served as leaders in technology and diplomacy (or cunning, hey, i never said power isn't dirty) than we are as brutal intimidators. Like you, W made the same mistake. And yes, our mistakes there do lead to a wealth of propaganda against us to recruit AQ and other terrorists. Was it the most recent Intelligence Estimate that reported AQ is stronger than ever? How can you not see that?

Every retaliatory strike we make deepens our problem - we lose people on the ground, we lose standing internationally, we build AQ up by even acknowledging them, we provide the best training to them (in actual experience), we package propaganda for them to recruit with, we waste money on it all, who lose sight of the big picture, and we disenfranchise our citizens who DO see that these piss ants are bleeding us to death with a thousand tiny cuts. And other piss ants like you are wetting themselves from the adrenaline of having something "patriotic" happen in their lifetime.

As far as MY solution, well, I am obviously opinionated (sorry about the wet pants comment, I got worked up, please forgive) but I am hardly qualified to know the intricacies of treaties and pacts that could be manipulated to our advantage. Outward isolationsim is a place to start, and though you believe it didn't help us before in WWII, I think it was a pivotal part of Japan's defeat. "Sleeping Giant" was certainly an advantageous reputation to use against them. From the get-go, every Japanese soldier was shouldering the fear of the impossibility of their mission, and our knock-out blow didn't cripple Japan's body, it crippled their spirit. So, isolationism isn't bad as long as we use it to create a mystique.

By emphasizing military power I did not mean to discount the use of trickery and diplomacy. It is just that diplomacy has limited value if the other side doesn’t think you have the will or the power to hold them to their agreement. I disagree with you that the US is not the dominant power in the world. Why else would the rest of the world pay such close attention to our presidential elections? I also disagree with your assessment of US isolationism and the Japanese. My point about Japan was that their strategy was similar to the terrorist of today. The argument against isolationism and for preemptive strikes is that if the “sleeping giant” was awake earlier the second world war would have been much shorter and less bloody for both sides. While preemptive wars may seem bloody there is no way of knowing how much bloodshed they are actually preventing by preventing a much larger conflict. Don’t worry about the piss ant comment (ants are quite powerful little creatures, and don’t back down from a fight either). But on a serious note, I and others like me aren’t yearning for some patriotic event. I just love capitalism, democracy and my country. I also feel that conflicts are a natural and unavoidable part of living on Earth, I just want us to win.

There IS no Global War On Terrorism (GWOT tm). It's a publicity fraud.

The bunch of clowns currently in charge in Washington aren't the first to scream "terrorist" every time there's some blowback from one of their land grabs or sundry other crimes. Likudiniks in Istael do it constantly. Putin screams "terrorist" as he bombs Grozny to a cinder the second time in a decade and turns Chechnya over to OMON thugs and rapists. Back when Ratko Mladic was shoving whole refugee camps down mine shafts, what did he say he was doing? Fighting terrorists.

And spare me any pompous references to 9/11. One terrorist attack doesn't write Bush a blank check to bomband occupy a country that has been PROVEN, numerous times now (because asshole Cheney refuses to accept the findings of our own intelligence agencies) not to have had anything to do with the attack. We are stuck in a war of occupation in which we have done hardly a single goddamn thing right, and now that Petraeus is doing a few things that might have been effective if they'd been done five years ago but are now beside the point, Bush and McCain seem to believe that we just have to drag it out another TEN YEARS and things will be fine.

Every day that we remain in Iraq increases the likelihood of the sectarian conflict THAT WE NURTURED becoming regional -- well hell, it's already regional, but it's not yet open war, and it could get ther, and it would be our fault.

The belief that our presence there is what prevents the growth of sectarian conflict flies in the face of every visible fact on the ground. The idea that we are somehow containing Iran, the same way we contained China with our Vietnam adventure, is further idiocy.

and on soft power:

I don't know for how much longer America will fascinate the rest of the world with our blue jeans and our rock bands. And the music they're hot for entered the ether of the digitalized past years ago, so how do we make a cent on Guns n' Roses now? Right now, the commodification of cultural production is a huge problem, and we created the technology that made it one.

Cool down homes! I get it... you hate America and capitalism. Message recieved!

i've already gotten into one pissing contest with a moron, today. Waste of time.

Moron…? Pissing contest?? Well the good thing is that morons can easily win most pissing contests. Anyways, I’m glad to hear that anyone who you disagree with is a moron, how… intelligent of you. I’m sorry about the Anti-American comment but seriously, anybody that hates rock and roll that much (especially Guns N’ Roses!) has to be Communist Swine! You outed yourself brother with this-

“I don't know for how much longer America will fascinate the rest of the world with our blue jeans and our rock bands. And the music they're hot for entered the ether of the digitalized past years ago, so how do we make a cent on Guns n' Roses now? Right now, the commodification of cultural production is a huge problem, and we created the technology that made it one.”

Moron…? Pissing contest?? Well the good thing is that morons can easily win most pissing contests. Anyways, I’m glad to hear that anyone who you disagree with is a moron, how… intelligent of you. I’m sorry about the Anti-American comment but seriously, anybody that hates rock and roll that much (especially Guns N’ Roses!) has to be Communist Swine! You outed yourself brother with this-

“I don't know for how much longer America will fascinate the rest of the world with our blue jeans and our rock bands. And the music they're hot for entered the ether of the digitalized past years ago, so how do we make a cent on Guns n' Roses now? Right now, the commodification of cultural production is a huge problem, and we created the technology that made it one.”