SimNation Under the Tree

In 1989, SimCity, a city-building simulation computer game, was released. The point of the game was to get the player to design and create a city by adding buildings, creating power grids, establishing transportation systems, adjusting the tax rate, zoning property, and more. The player could expect to encounter a number of calamities like floods, earthquakes, plane crashes, fires, and more. In some cases, these disastrous occurrences could generate other hardships that the player had to deal with.

As the player played, he or she needed to establish a tax basis, a zoning plan for the kind of growth that would encourage and support production and consumption, and make growth decisions his city could afford to purchase and maintain.

In light of the budget and spending battle underway in the Congress, it occurred to me that it would be great if there was a simulation our Congressmen could plug their proposals into to see what exactly they should expect in the way of outcomes of all of this spending they seem to love. If I was a game designer, I'd create that game and call it SimNation. Congressmen could plug in a set of beginning parameters: the GDP, inflation rate, unemployment rate, and so on. Then, he or she would plug in their budget values and see how it plays out. If the Congressman overspends, they can watch the budget deficit add to the national debt and watch it go through the roof. Or they might get concerned they'd lose the game and make better spending decisions.

I don't know if there's enough logic in the universe to make that kind of game work. Even if Congressmen won't be finding a SimNation under the tree this Christmas, I would really like to start the new year in the belief our our representatives will begin to game their decisions out so our kids and grandkids don't get stuck with it all they've been creating.

It's (Not) Crying Time Again

I don't have a problem with guys getting emotional at times. If the tears are genuine, they sometimes and in certain circumstances show a depth of passion and feeling that words don't adequately describe. There are other times when it doesn't matter what the tears mean to the crier because they hold an entirely different meaning to others who see them. When people want empathy, they'll indulge the tears; when they want leadership, they don't want tears, they want to see you pound the table instead.

Representative John Boehner, the Speaker of the House-in-waiting, is taking some heat over his most recent well-publicized bawling episode. The videos and pictures of Rep. Boehner are getting a lot of air time; they show this weekend's watering, aired on 60 Minutes, as more than a chin-quivering, moist-eyed moment of sensitivity. They show him in a complete teary breakdown.

I don't believe for a second that Mr. Boehner's tears are contrived so I don't fault his sincerity. What I fault is - well - his sincerity, or at least the way he reveals it. He's obviously touching on a stimulus when he lowers his guard and speaks from the heart, but his adversaries are taking chisels to those little emotional fissures. By now, he should see it coming; he should know better than to show so much of himself to people he knows are going to rip him apart for it. By the time the beating over this latest tearful event passes, I hope he realizes his emotions need to find a different conduit. Rather than speak from the heart, he's going to need to speak tactically and think and act from the heart. The cynics out there aren't going to care how much he cares. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to any of us is whether he got the job done or not.

I remember toward the end of the Jimmy Carter term there was a lot of sentiment out there that he wasn't much of a president, but he sure did care. Well, no one cared if he cared or not. He was elected in the first place because people thought he cared. There came a time when we needed to see the proof because the country was in trouble. We needed to see him lead and motivate a country that was losing its confidence. The American people finally got bored with Carter and made him a one-term president, turning instead to Ronald Reagan who was as passionate as they come, but tough as nails too.

So, if I was giving Mr. Boehner advice, I would suggest he recognize that everyone who will ever care if he cares already believes he does. All of the rest are going to need to see the hard evidence. As Mr. Carter's experiences teach, when you're in a position of responsibility, it doesn't matter how much you care if you don't produce results. It will soon be time for him to get tough, kill the water works, and get busy producing those results.

Justices Give the Framers a Do-Over

This morning, Justice Stephen Breyer took to the Sunday news shows to promote his new book, "Making Our Democracy Work." In the course of his interview with Fox's Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Justice Breyer indicated the Founders never intended for as free an application of the right to bear arms as many citizens today insist upon.

He said that James Madison, in writing the Second Amendment, wrote the right to bear arms into the Bill of Rights more out of an interest in getting the Constitution ratified than an interest in granting citizens the right to bear arms. Justice Breyer hinted that Madison was more interested in appeasing the states than he was in granting this right since the states never would have ratified the Constitution without it.

Well, Justice Breyer is probably right, but it's not exactly an OMG revelation as much it is a DUH moment. Most of the men we know as the "Framers" of the Constitution were not only opposed to adding the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, they were opposed to adding the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights as well.

Framer Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84 that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary and even dangerous. He believed the Constitution inherently granted all of the rights that were needed and that with specific powers granted to the government there was no authority written into the Constitution that would deprive individual and states rights.

Ultimately, the Federalists gave in to the Anti-Federalists and to some rights-friendly Federalists like Jefferson and agreed to work immediately on a Bill of Rights once the Constitution was ratified. The truth is the states would not have ratified the Constitution without a Bill of Rights. Including the entire Bill of Rights - all ten amendments - was thus an appeasement to the States (and to the people too).

So, by Justice Breyer's logic, the Framers would not have supported even old favorites like the First and Fifth Amendments because they too were appended to the Constitution to appease the States.

That's the danger of referring exclusively to the words of Framers like Hamilton and Madison when interpreting the intent behind the Constitution's words. There are several parts of the Constitution - important parts like the Bill of Rights - that the Framers were generally and specifically opposed to. Many of these were added not because the Framers wanted them, but because the people wanted them.

Supreme Court justices like Justice Breyer have been too reluctant to cite the intent of the people in the framing of our Constitution and have relied on the words of the Framers, even when Framers' arguments didn't carry the day when our government was formed. In doing so, some of today's justices ultimately do something not even the Framers did in their day: write law based only on Framers' intent.

Compromisers and Horse Traders

The Federalists believed the Articles of Confederation, our first constitution, made the national government too weak. Thus, they pushed for a new constitution. The Anti-Federalists, on the other hand, believed the constitution that was proposed to replace the Articles of Confederation would make the national government too strong and would essentially create a monarchy.

After a near-civil war over the issue of a proposed new constitution, the Federalists and Anti-Federalists came together with a compromise. The Federalists would get their constitution and the Anti-Federalists would get a bill of rights that amended the Constitution and limited the power and authority of the government in favor of the rights and responsibilities of states and individuals. The Constitution was ultimately ratified and the Bill of Rights became the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

That was the compromise that set the standard for all government compromises in this country. The compromise that produced the Constitution and the Bill of Rights gave the Federalists a republic in place of a vulnerable confederation of independent states, and it gave the Anti-Federalists the limited government and the individual and states rights they sought.  The compromise didn't cause either side to subjugate their values to the agreement; instead, it struck an improbable balance between concerns for liberty on one side and security on the other.  They argued, they fought, they walked out on each other, they wrote articles and pamphlets on the other's positions, but ultimately, they made it come together.

The difference between the compromise that produced our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the compromises the government makes now is there is simply not enough friction in the debate today to create imaginative outcomes that preserve our values. There is not enough toiling over the principles.  I suspect the absence of that fruitful friction is caused by too much reliance on power, expedience, and prerogative, and not enough faith in principles, honor, and duty.

There is a vast difference in the quality of public policy produced by men and women who brood over our national values and our societal fabric and what we end up when they settle on policy by simply divvying up pet projects and issues. Their horse trading has produced ear marks, deal-making, and bi-partisanship that have broken the bank. We need less bi-partisanship and more non-partisanship. We need less horse trading and more compromise.  I don't believe we'll solve our most serious problems in this country until they figure it out.

Seat of Irrelevance

Most polls have Congress' approval rating hovering below 25% and its disapproval rating somewhere around 70%. I believe those marks are representative of two general sentiments: first, of those who pay attention and really don't like the job Congress is doing, and second, of those who don't have a clue and chime in against Congress because it seems to be the thing to do.

For those of us who are paying attention, we need to continue to vote our representatives out of office if they fail to represent us as they should. We ought to set high expectations and take our representatives to task when they don't meet those expectations.

For those who aren't paying attention and just like to bellow about Congress, I don't know what to say except this is a great time to start paying attention.

In the past two years, we've seen the Executive Branch move on its agenda at a feverish pace with barely a hint of dialogue and debate in the halls of government. Sure, the media has had its day with most of the issues, but we haven't seen the classic struggle of ideas or the clash of philosophies between branches of government that the Founders envisioned when they structured our system of separation of powers.

I think it's healthy for the Executive to pull and strain at the limits of its authority, but I also think it's healthy for the Congress to fight it at every step of the way when it does. In fact, I think it's unhealthy for the Congress not to fight Executive power grabs because we can't afford an irrelevant Congress. And the Congress needs to be on its toes, even at the risk of seeming combative, because the Executive can always move more quickly than the Congress.

In my mind, policy change that happens too fast for the Congress to comprehend also happens too fast to be properly assimilated into the culture of the nation. When the Executive moves too fast and fails to collaborate with the Congress, our representatives have no choice but to either rubber stamp "yes," or to pound the table with a persistent "no." Even a speedy compromise discredits the Congress because it lacks the struggle of ideologies and values that makes representative republics work. I much prefer gridlock and inaction over rule by decree, and the last midterm election indicates most Americans agree.

In the last election, people essentially became disgruntled with the "Party of Yes," while the Executive bemoaned the "Party of No." I think most of us want both to be parties of participation and engagement within limits of the Constitution whether they agree with each other or not. When our elected representatives become irrelevant in deference to the Executive, the people become irrelevant. We aren't going to be satisfied with that.

Of Atheists, Criminals, and Fools

The two candidates had been friends for years and had a long history of setting aside politics in favor of finding common ground for the benefit of the people whose interests they represented. They were intelligent, courageous visionaries although they had quite different temperaments and philosophies in many ways. While they were different in many ways, they seemed always to find a way to get along. They got along, that is, until they decided to run for the same political office.

During the campaign, one claimed that the other had such a weak character that he had neither the "firmness of a man" nor the "sensibility of a woman," asserting in very clear terms that his character had a decidedly hermaphroditic quality.

Not to be outdone, his opponent accused him of being a mean-spirited low-life whose mother was a "mixed-breed Indian squaw." His description of his father was equally insulting.

As the barbs amplified, one candidate claimed the other was a fool and a criminal while the second labeled the first as an atheist and a coward.

Finally, one of the candidates hired a henchman to smear his opponent which he did quite well. The other candidate said he wouldn't lower himself to that tactic. The hired political thug did such a good job his man won the election by a hair. While the operative's tactics were effective and damaging, they were also so slanderous that he ended up in jail for spreading them around. When the political muckraker was released from prison, he wasn't feeling the love from his former compadre, so he wrote a number of articles in which he claimed the successful candidate was having an affair with a woman who had given birth to five of his children! 

Isn't it difficult to imagine the President and Vice President of the United States locked into such a bitter and vicious political battle against each other, particularly since they had long been friends and political allies? It's hard to imagine, but it did happen. President John Adams and Vice President Thomas Jefferson eventually restored their relationship with each other, but it must have seemed a distant possibility during the presidential campaign of 1800.

A Pre-Existing Outcome

With the new Congress about to be seated, the health care issue is sure to come up again. The issue is worth another look before the fur really starts flying.

First of all, I'm not an insurance guy, but I think I get how it works...I take out a health insurance policy so my medical bills can be covered in case I get sick or hurt. An insurance company will write an insurance policy on me if it believes it will make more money from my premiums and their reinvestment of my premiums than they pay out for my medical bills. That's fair enough. They take a risk on me and their confidence in my good health. I'm fine with that. We both hope I'm a good risk, but for different reasons. I'm fine with that too.

In an odd twist of irony perhaps, I hope my insurance company is REALLY good at minimizing its risk exposure because if I ever need to collect on my insurance, I want it to have PLENTY of money available to pay up. I want them to be very successful and profitable. But since they're speculators, they might write a policy on me today and I might get hit by a truck tomorrow. Their loss (mine too, I suppose), but they took a chance on me. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.

Let's say I've been plodding along without health insurance because I think I'm bullet-proof. Then, let's say that during a softball game that I'm really too old and out of shape to be playing, I keel over with a heart attack. Thankfully, it doesn't kill me, but it does scare me enough to inspire me to go shopping for health insurance once I get out of the hospital. I have to admit that I'm not going to be too surprised if I can't find a company to write a health insurance policy on me at that point. If I was honest, I'd admit it would make no sense for them to cover me if I have a pre-existing condition since they won't make enough from my premiums to pay my bills before next week's doctor's visit. The only way they could do that would be to either charge higher premiums to healthy people or to bundle my coverage with a group or family plan. Charging higher premiums to healthy people wouldn't be a competitive option at all, so the group plan is looking better. There's no way I should expect the company to write a policy simply for the honor of promptly paying my bills. Seriously.

Well, no one likes to see or hear about people not being able to get health insurance. This is America; people should be able to get all the health care they need, shouldn’t they? How do people who don't have health insurance get their health care paid for?

If I get into a car accident and I’m rushed to the emergency room, they’re going to take care of me. At some awkward moment, they’re going to ask me how I’m going to pay, but let’s say I can’t. I don’t have a job and I don’t have any money. Are they going to roll me out into the street? No. They’re going to care for me and they’re going to “eat” my costs. I say they’re going to “eat” those costs, but no one in business really eats losses if they know what they’re doing. They’re going to pass those losses on to their other customers (patients). What happens then? When the guy down the street goes to that hospital to have his appendix removed and he gets that beefed up bill for medical services, he’s going to turn it over to his insurance company. Is the insurance company going to eat it? No, they’re going to spread the cost out amongst their policy holders. So, under the current health care system, who pays for indigent health care? One or more of the following: People who get sick, their employers, or their insurance companies.

So, we have to wonder why there is such a push in some corners of the government for health insurance for all, including those with pre-existing conditions, when we must know it's a failing business proposition for insurance companies. With no way to protect their risk assessment models and earn a profit, these companies would surely fail under severe anti-entrepreneurial mandates. If insurance companies fail, where would we be then? Well, I guess we could require everyone to purchase government health insurance to go along with their government health care. Maybe the government will save us...

Politics & Military Quagmires

The word "quagmire" is thrown around quite a lot these days in an attempt to relate our current conflicts to Vietnam in a negative way. For many critics, Vietnam is the poster child for quagmires, and the use of that term is a discrediting stigma.

In my view, Vietnam is still very much misunderstood, which means that we are probably less than a generation away from seeing a good bit of folklore about the war become recorded history. Vietnam was a quagmire in the minds of many because it required the protracted commitment of our military forces and there were no "legitimate" strategic benefits from our involvement there. Critics saw Vietnam as a perpetuation of the military industrial complex's insatiable desire for conflict with which to fuel its engine. I think there is much more to it that than that, but I admit that my sense of that war is not as cynical.

In my mind, what made Vietnam a quagmire - to the extent that it was - were the limitations placed on ground commanders by leaders in Washington who did not want to provoke the Soviets by bombing shipping assets in places like Haiphong Harbor and those who did not want to "expand the war" by bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia and Laos, although major Vietcong combat resupply routes ran through those areas. There were many, many other decisions made like these that had the same effect. The bottom line is in spite of the fact that our military forces in Vietnam were very capable and highly successful in every major engagement, they couldn't win the war because of a failed war execution agenda in the United States. Put another way, we were successful on the tactical level but we failed at the strategic level.

Yesterday, I wrote that we need to give commanders in Afghanistan all of the support and resources they need to win the war there. I also wrote that if a war is important enough to commit troops to, then it is important enough to go at whole hog. That is because in failing to go in aggressively to win, we are potentially left with tactical successes and strategic failures. As owners of the world's most potent military force, we should never forfeit US military lives and prestige in that way.

Afghanistan is different from Vietnam in many ways, but it is similar in some ways too. In Afghanistan, we're pursuing a coy and clever enemy who fights at his pleasure on ground with which he is very familiar and comfortable. That's a similarity to Vietnam. One huge difference is that the terrain in Afghanistan is so prohibitive for movement, our troops can easily transition from tactical advantage to extreme tactical disadvantage in an hour, simply by moving from one place to another 1000 meters away. Those scenarios always exist for troops on the ground and they did exist for our infantry in Vietnam, but in the mountains of Afghanistan, it is an inherent and persistent reality.

In Vietnam, US forces often employed a tactic to reduce their vulnerability referred to as "reconnaissance by fire," which could include any number of actions involving directing firepower at a target, but the general idea was to discover the enemy by flushing him out or provoking behavior with weapons fire so you didn't have to physically expose your troops to get the same outcome. You can use direct fire weapons such as rifles and machine guns or indirect fire weapons like mortars, artillery, grenade launchers, or air support to draw the enemy out.

In Iraq, insurgents employed a reconnaissance by fire tactic in a sense by incrementally escalating potentially threatening gestures toward troops in order to learn more about our rules of engagement. If our enemy knows that our rules of engagement are not to fire until fired upon, for instance, the enemy can maneuver to an extreme physical advantage before opening fire and overwhelming our forces. If our enemy knows that our rules of engagement call for the use of air support near non-combatants only if our troops are under imminent threat, that leaves those enemy forces a whole lot of options, including laying hit-and-run ambushes from amongst non-combatants.

A year ago, a Department of Defense report called for better training for air and ground forces to reduce civilian casualties. There is a practical purpose for taking another look at our approach to the use of air support, not the least of which is the fact that an injudicious use of firepower of any kind is unnecessarily wasteful of limited resources and the fact that it's hard to win the hearts and minds (another Vietnam reference) of the local population if you're bombing the neighborhood every day unnecessarily at the first sign of danger.

It is good and important to ensure our people are not using unnecessary force, no doubt. We don't want - and our combat forces don't want - to call for the big hay maker at the first sign of enemy contact all of the time. That can also become a predictable behavior that our enemy can use to his advantage because he will learn to simply hunker down until the barrage or hail of gunfire passes and pop back up at the sight of infantry. A good use of suppression is almost always most effectively employed when immediately followed by the exertion of swift infantry force before the enemy can recover his composure and bearings. So, you can't just toss bombs and rockets then stroll through the rubble and count the bodies. You have to be much more thoughtful about it in terrain like our troops are operating in in Afghanistan.

I lay all of that background to get to this point.

When US Army General McChrystal took command in Afghanistan he issued a directive to troops in Afghanistan to avoid firing on buildings where insurgents might be hiding amongst non-combatants unless our troops are in imminent danger. That and other measures were intended to create a "civilian surge" to improve relations between US forces and Afghans. (In Vietnam, "civilian surge" would have been called "win the hearts and minds.")

But there is a potential problem with this rule of engagement: In an environment where reconnaissance by fire might be prudent when moving into exposed terrain and where enemy guerrilla tactics will lay ambushes from amongst civilians, we need to be careful not to handcuff our ground forces so that they expose themselves unnecessarily because their situation does not meet the "imminent danger" criteria. To many at home in the United States, the difference between "imminent danger" and "reasonable danger" might seem minor, but to in the legal language of the times, the word "imminent" literally places our troops on the brink of lethal hazard.

We need to be careful not to develop strategies like this in Washington that will reduce our combat effectiveness on the scene and create a tactical quagmire for our troops on the ground in Afghanistan. We should remember that the Soviets were utterly brutal in Afghanistan when they were there, but they still found themselves lured into traps that were sprung by virtue of the predictability of their tactics.

We need not to find ourselves embroiled in the same mess. As I wrote yesterday, we citizens need to watch out for our military people abroad and listen for signs that we are incrementally slipping into a strategy dictated from Washington that is predictable, excessively cautious, impractical, and imprudent. If that is where we go, we could again see our forces fighting for their lives under a strategy that is designed for political expedience, not military success.

Suicide Pact?

I heard this on the radio tonight: "We're a nation of laws, but at the same time, our Constitution isn't a suicide pact either."

My take: True. Treacherously slippery, but true.

Right War, Wrong War

We all remember the terror attacks of 9/11. We also remember that in the immediate aftermath of those attacks President Bush declared a Global War on Terror which essentially broadened the potential battleground in the campaign on terror beyond the rugged countryside of Afghanistan.

We remember the suspicion that Iraq produced or possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). We had reason to believe it had them. The Iraqis had used them on the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War, they had used them on the Kurds in their own country in recent memory, weapons inspectors were obstructed in their efforts to get to the bottom of the issue in Iraq before being tossed out of the country on a number of occasions, and we now know from Saddam Hussein's own mouth that he intentionally led the United States to believe Iraq had these weapons because he wanted Iran to believe they had them. That turned out to be a significant and tragic gamble for him.

So, we attacked Iraq on the pretense that it was a legitimate target in the War on Terror.

We should also remember that when the U. S. and coalition forces attacked Iraq in 2003, Iraq was still under obligations compelled by the Desert Storm cease fire agreement, but ever since the end of that war when Iraq agreed to keep its aircraft and weapons out of the air, the Iraqis launched missiles and anti-aircraft artillery fire at American aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq. The United States bombed Iraqi targets in response, but it didn't deter them. Therefore, Iraq was a legitimate battlefield with or without WMD; it had not abided by the conditions under which we agreed not to expand Desert Storm beyond the borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait into Iraq.

So, the United States vanquished what was once the fourth most powerful military in the world and got busy helping the people of Iraq build a democratic republic with rights for all, hopefully to be relatively free of the tyranny of its own government. As we begin to pull back from our physical commitment to that country, Iraqis are rejoicing their new sovereignty as American troops have withdrawn from large population centers and have turned combat operations over to Iraqi control.

Shifting gears a little to the point of this posting, since the beginning of the 2008 Presidential campaign, the issue of the "wrong war" in Iraq versus the "right war" in Afghanistan has been raised repeatedly to the point that now it's virtually a catch-phrase. Now that we have nearly completed the "wrong war," we are turning our full attention to the "right war," some would have us believe...

Here's my two cents' on the "wrong war" and the "right war."

I believe that the "right war" and the "wrong war" are the same war. The campaign is being waged against a stateless enemy, so we have to think a little bit outside the box. Since terrorists aren't bound by borders, what is the point in being drawn into a battle within borders that might spell failure for us by virtue of the terrain and the operating environment? Why should we fight an enemy in the rugged unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan where they would have the tactical advantage when we can draw them to a fight on terrain that is more to our liking in a place like Iraq? In the end, we get rid of a dictator who is hostile to us and threatens us repeatedly, the people of his country finally have a voice in a new government, and we are in a better position to shape the battlefield on which we engage the broader enemy.

Mao Tse Tung (Mao Zedong) is well-known for having advised his guerrillas to "move through the people like a fish moves through water." We battle guerrillas using these tactics by leaving "fish" aground by "draining the swamp." In fact, former-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made a reference to draining the swamp with regard to the anti-terror operation.

However, I don't believe our strategy was to drain the streets of Iraq - the swamp - of sanctuary for terrorists with the hope of isolating them. I believe our strategy was to  flood the swamp (Iraq) with the hope of attracting terrorists to a battlefield of our choosing. We flooded Iraq with American troops and an opportunity for terrorists from all over the world to take the Americans on head-on. And they came to the battle: homicide bombers, snipers, IED bombers, drive-by shooters, kidnappers - the works - and we defeated them all while restoring the promise of a better future for Iraqis.

If we hadn't done it that way - stage the battle in Iraq - and if we had instead, taken the fight into Afghanistan immediately, I believe we would have had the same jihadist response that we had in Iraq, but on a much more difficult battlefield. Jihadists would have flooded into Afghanistan to fight the Americans as they flooded into Iraq, but the fight would have been much different and difficult for us there. It's hard enough as it is.

American military strategists are very familiar with the legions of warriors who have passed through Afghanistan over the centuries unable to conquer the land or the people who lived in its unforgiving terrain. We are very familiar with the experiences of the Soviet military in that country in the late 1970s which, at the time, was the other superpower in the world.

No, I think we did the right thing in going to Iraq and I do not think we really went into Iraq only for the reasons we were told. I also believe it would have been a dreadful tactical error for the American government to announce that this was its strategy because the mere announcement of it would have caused it to fail.

So, now we're wrapping up the "wrong war" in Iraq and we're committing more fully to the "right war" in Afghanistan. I think the time is right to leave Iraq because two things have happened there: (1) the Iraqi government is fairly stable, and (2) all of the swamp creatures who would come to Iraq to fight us there have been pretty well defeated. Now we go to Afghanistan to fight a much less numerous and formidable foe than we would have fought in that country had we begun our work there.

The news coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan is dreadfully poor. The media has bought into the idea of identifying our troops as NATO troops rather than American troops; the result is the American people are almost totally detached now from any sense of the progress and casualties of the war. I don't think that's good at all. The American people should have an accurate, unsensationalized impression of how the war - this "right" war is proceeding. (Isn't it odd that we know almost nothing about how this "right" war is going?) We should know our civilian leaders are prosecuting the war diligently and are not squandering valuable military lives, material assets, and tactical and strategic advantage:

(1) Do not get drawn into battles on ground not of our choosing. Guerrillas in Afghanistan are and have always been extraordinarily patient - much more patient than we Americans are. We need to fight them on terrain and terms of our choosing on our time.

(2) We need to avoid making timetable commitments. These guerrillas will do two things in response those kinds of plans: (1) they will wait us out, (2) they will be ready for us to act hastily on poor ground.

(3) We need to ensure troop strengths are more than adequate to get the job done. If commanders on the ground ask for more troops, they need to have them.

(4) We need to fight all-out. Any limitations we place on our use of tactics and weaponry will cost American lives. If we are not prepared to go in with the full force of our military, we need to just turn around and come home. The American people need to listen for cues that will tell them whether we are really committed to victory, or if we're willing to accept a strategy of limited engagements on ground of the enemy's choosing. If so, we need to be aware that this is the opposite strategy of the one that worked in Iraq.

This is the time for the American people to pay very close attention to the war. Listen to what the generals are asking for and pay attention to the Administration's response. It is more important to fight this war the right way than it is to merely know it as the "right war."

The Fruits of Dependency

Don't tell my wife I've written this because it will make her unnecessarily self-conscious about her "situation." You see, over the years, she has learned to become quite dependent on me. She needs me, and I don't want to burden her with the thought of it now. There's no point in stirring the pot and making her self-conscious.

The story begins in 1980 when I found her as a shiftless wandering waif on the campus of the University of Missouri where we were both students. We met one day when I rushed in to her rescue as she brooded over a college algebra book. I've always been a humanitarian. Well, those few minutes of assistance turned into a lifetime of dependency for her. She spent the next two years stalking me relentlessly until she broke me down. Not able to take it any more, I finally asked her to marry me, and so at the ripe old age of 19, she had found and married the man of her dreams.

After about a year of marriage, I saved her from the dreary routine that so many college students follow when they start and finish their college educations at one institution. She started at Missouri, but since I was ahead of her in school, I let her put off finishing her schooling once I graduated so she could follow me to my next duty station (I was a newly commissioned Marine officer) in Quantico, Virginia. That was good for her because it allowed her to get up bright and early in the morning to drive me to work and to finish what she was doing during the day in time to pick me up in the evening.

Six months later, I was transferred to Pensacola, Florida for flight training. It was in Pensacola that I did two important things for her: (1) I let her restart her education at the University of West Florida (without finishing there), and (2) I let her become the mother of my first son, Rob.

When Rob was about a month old, I let her (and Rob) accompany me to my next duty station at the New River Marine Corps Air Station in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Once there, I let her get busy getting acquainted with Rob and I also let her enroll in school again at Golden Gate University where I went ahead and let her finish her bachelors degree. She had put it off long enough.

I was sent on a number of deployments, so since she was starting to catch on to all of this child-rearing stuff, I decided to let her put those skills to work and take care of Rob while I was away. That's also when I let her have a (limited) power of attorney so she could learn to manage our finances and other important matters while I was away. She did well with that, so I let her do it again when I later deployed to the Mediterranean. (Then I let her do it for the rest of our lives.)

Now that she was the master of all that I had let her do to this point, I decided that before - just before - my next deployment, I would grace her with another bundle of joy. Bryan was not my first choice in names for this little treasure. My first choice was Jessica - after Jessica Lange. One key thing kept us from naming Bryan Jessica: Bryan was a boy. I did like the name Bryan for him though, so Bryan it was. It worked out in the end because it turns out I don't like Jessica Lange's politics so we would have had to change his name to Shania until I found out I didn't like Shania's politics either. Things worked out for the best. I'm glad he was a boy.

So, I let my wife juggle this growing family while I went off to the Mediterranean for six months again. I did go a little soft on her and tell her that I would get orders out of the deployment cycle for a few years after that deployment. At first, I planned to become a recruiter for officers in Roanoke, Virginia, but those orders fell through after I had let her shop for and purchase a house there with me.

My next plan was to let her move with me to Pensacola where I would be a flight instructor. She liked that. What she didn't like was what happened next, but it did make her a better and more complete person.

We had already made a trip to Pensacola where we bought a house. It was a nice house. When we returned home to North Carolina as I was about to wind down my tour there, I was asked by an old friend to give him a hand by lending some flying and carrier (helicopter aircraft carrier) experience to the squadron he had just taken command of. He wanted me to join his squadron for a 58-day deployment to the North Atlantic. After telling him repeatedly, "no," I finally agreed.

I told my wife that I was going to let her, Rob, and Bryan stay in North Carolina a little longer while I went off to Norway with this new squadron I was about to join.

Well, I was out flying on a Saturday, letting my wife have a little "Q time" with the boys on the weekend so I could help train our pilots to operate around the ship when we were recalled to the base a couple of hours into our work. Once back at the base, we were informed that we were likely about to be deployed to the Middle East because Iraq had just invaded Kuwait. That was a temporary setback in our plans to move to Pensacola, but I got the wheels turning upstairs and came up with a solution.

Since my 58-day deployment had just turned into a deployment with no end in sight, I called Marine Corps headquarters in Washington and told them not to cancel my Pensacola orders for another month so I could get my family moved to Pensacola. When I say "so I could get my family moved to Pensacola," I don't mean that I was actually going to be involved with the moving part of it. I let my wife handle that because the movers weren't going to be able to move "us" until after I was already on my way to the Middle East.

So, I let her move our young family to Pensacola and set up our new home by herself. That enabled her to hang the pictures where she wanted, set up the furniture where she wanted, decide which of our boys had the top and bottom bunk, and so on. Speaking of furniture, the combination of letting her move the family to Pensacola and the power of attorney I gave her also inspired her to buy some new furniture. She sent pictures to me so I wasn't shocked with the new stuff when I returned home (like I would have noticed). I guess in a way, I let her buy that furniture, so I deserved what I got.

I was deployed for eight months then I flew to our new home in Pensacola after my squadron returned to North Carolina. We got reacquainted and then she asked me when I was planning to retire from the Marine Corps. I had been in the Marines for about 17 years at the time and could retire in three years, so she was wondering if the flight instructor tour would be my final hurrah.

I did what any husband who had let his wife do as many things as I had over the years would do: I answered her question without really answering it. I told her, "That depends." Then, I followed that statement with what seemed to be a rhetorical question, "Are you planning to get a job to support us?" She claimed that she could. Hah! Time for her to get a little reality check! That too would be good for her.

So, she enrolled in courses with the College of Financial Planning, then got an entry level job with what I will refer to as "a major brokerage firm." This company took pretty good care of her. They got her to work on getting her stock broker's license, then it was a parade of other licenses after that. I was starting to be happy I let her do that.

Since she was on a roll and I had just been promoted, I left her and the boys in Pensacola while I was stationed in North Carolina with a squadron that was about to be deployed to Bosnia and Liberia. While I was in the States, I commuted back and forth from North Carolina to see my family, but once I was deployed, I was deployed. That was good for her too because she had the opportunity to weather two hurricanes while I was overseas. A person needs to know how to handle that sort of thing in case it ever comes up and your husband's not around.

As my deployment was winding down, I was pleased to learn that the Marine Corps had chosen me to command a squadron where? In Pensacola.

Meanwhile, my wife was about to become the Pensacola branch manager for this firm she had joined a couple of years earlier. She was promoted again and became the branch manager for three branches at once: Destin, Pensacola, and Mobile. Later, she was promoted to a training role that had her based in Indianapolis, but living in Pensacola. This allowed her to work at home when she wasn't on the road so she could see me (and the kids).

Then, she was promoted to a director's position over wealth management for the company's West Coast region. She was based in Phoenix where she had an apartment during the week and commuted home to Pensacola on the weekends.

Then, she decided she wasn't getting enough of me (and the kids), so she accepted a position as senior vice president for wealth management for a large regional bank based in Atlanta. She was responsible for the bank's Northwest Florida region. When they asked her to take on an additional role as city president of the bank in Pensacola a year later, she did that as well. Recently, she broadened her wealth management role as a managing director responsible for all of North Florida.

So, you see, she's come to depend on me quite heavily. I let her take a non-traditional route to a college degree, I let her play a large role in raising our kids, I let her learn about finances by managing our household finances while I was deployed, I let her move around from state to state so she could see more of the country, and I let her get a job so I could retire from the Marines.

Seriously for a moment, I do count her as my number 1 blessing, and I know I don't deserve all that she has brought to our marriage and to my sons (whom I let her claim as hers on occasion too).

You hear about "self-made men." Well, my wife is the consummate self-made woman. She has humbly yet relentlessly become a very successful business woman in the 18 years or so that she has been working outside of our home, all the while being a great mother and wife. Any woman who wants to know about breaking the so-called glass ceiling should spend an hour or ten with my wife. It's been hard work, but she has made the most of her opportunities.

Everybody is different. What she has done has worked well for her and for us. She could have done just as well and been just as happy had she stayed at home, but the route she took gave her another kind of fulfillment. She genuinely has no sense of self-importance over her success or her professional standing - she would probably say she's too busy to take much stock of it. She appreciates her work, but she also appreciates her down time. She manages a fairly maddeningly-paced life with balance and poise. Her sons and I are proud of her.

Again, though, please don't tell her I wrote this, lest we risk harming her self-esteem. Let's allow her to continue to be dependent on me since that seems to be working for her. We don't want to spoil a good thing, do we?

WikiReeks

Something stinks here.

About every other week or so, we hear that the website WikiLeaks has bared another bundle of secrets on its website. By the time the reporting is completed on one of these episodes, we're often reminded that Army PFC Bradley Manning has been charged with feeding secrets to the website with the implication that he and WikiLeaks are solely to blame for the security breaches. Manning is a PRIVATE FIRST CLASS. Nothing against PFCs - I used to be one - but how did this one work around so much classified material without supervision and oversight? Who was in charge of him? Any idea how many tens of thousands of soldiers outrank PFC Manning?

I'm becoming very concerned about what is not being said by the government and what is not being asked by the media. Why isn't the media pressing the government for answers regarding how the release or compromise of this information to WikiLeaks could have ever happened in the first place? Who was the accountable custodian of the material? How did so many unsanitized State Department documents end up in these files at an Army base in Iraq of all places anyway? Why was the distribution of these classified documents handled so sloppily? What happened to "need to know?" Normally, the words "cover-up" and "scandal" would have  been tossed around already, but they haven't been. Why not? Instead, we're being treated to a junk food diet of suggestions that WikiLeaks should be considered an enemy of the state, that the U. S. government is considering a crackdown on the site, and questions as to whether WikiLeaks is a terror organization. Of course, we're also cynically tantalized with tasty morsels of diplomatic gossip that dull our distaste for it all.

Before we chalk the lack of curiosity to a lazy and complacent national media, we ought to think a little harder about it. It might be that the media is not asking questions because it can't get past its own interest in making villains of its competition, the out-of-the-mainstream media. Why else would the media sit quietly while the government assails the First Amendment rights of others? The answer is obvious: many in the media care most about their own First Amendment rights and not so much about those same rights for others. Is it possible that an effective inquiry has been all but stifled by the mutual interests of the government and the mainstream media to undermine what they both consider to be the fringe media?

For my own part, I don't give two hoots about WikiLeaks' rights on this issue because it's behaving irresponsibly with wonton disregard for our security interests. Usually in this country, even the worst in the media have some regard for highly sensitive matters and they are generally reluctant to start fires just to watch them burn. Still, I find it odd - and telling - that the media is so quiet on this.

Whatever we think of WikiLeaks and however much we despise PFC Manning's actions, we should be utterly outraged over the failure of the media to ask the relevant questions and of the government to be accountable. In many ways, the failures of the media and the government in this regard pose a greater danger than WikiLeaks and PFC Manning ever will by themselves.

Calm Before the Storm

I had never been to combat before I was deployed in support of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in late August of 1990. I had flown quite a lot of rather difficult tactical missions, however, where we needed to be intense and absolutely focused on what we were doing. The missions we flew as we trained to deploy and those we flew while on deployment were especially challenging because of all of the moving parts and because of the complexity we deliberately dialed into our scenarios.

Before launching from the ship on those missions, I used to go down to my state room (living quarters) to gather and put on my flight gear and to "get my mind right" for the mission. A lot of pilots listened to a little bit of "mood music" before flying. In my own case, I usually cranked up the volume to U2's "New Years Day" before heading to the flight deck to start the mission. Most of us believed getting zoned in with good mission planning and the right mood was important.

In early January of 1991, we were training in the desert of Oman on night vision goggles in preparation for the start of the not-yet-named Operation Desert Storm which as it turned out, was just a couple of weeks away. We were recalled to our ship, the USS Guam, something that almost NEVER happened. As we landed, the ship was steaming somewhere in a big hurry. We thought this was it, that the operation that was to become Operation Desert Storm was about to begin. We were wrong.

It turned out that our embassy in a city no one had ever heard of at the time - Mogadishu, Somalia - was under seige by opposing forces in a civil war. We were called on to rush down to Somalia and rescue the U. S. embassy staff (with families) of 23 Americans. Within the next 24 hours, though, our mission expanded because other nations' forces had tried and failed in their efforts to extract their embassy staffs, having been chased away by gunfire. Suddenly, our mission expanded; now we were to rescue 281 people from 30 different countries from the U. S. Embassy grounds.

I won't go into all of the planning considerations here because that's not the point of this post, but I'll say that ultimately, we elected to go in on night vision goggles with two flights of five U. S. Marine assault helicopters and clean out the non-combatants in four sorties (flights).

Personal preparation for this mission was a little different than others in the past because I needed to add picking up personal armor, a weapon (actually two weapons), and personal ammunition to my routine. As had been my habit, I went down to my state room to put my flight gear on and to crank up the U2. I did just that, and then I walked.

I went to the ship's flight deck by way of the ready room. All of the pilots went up at the same time and as we walked across the flight deck to our aircraft, the Air Boss (the Guam's Air Operations Officer, a U. S. Navy Commander) played a song of his own over the flight deck intercom. It was Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U. S. A."

The mood and spirit of the song couldn't have been more different from the U2 I had listened to a few minutes earlier and, as corny as it might sound, it was perfect. Where my U2 was great for amping up that intensity, Greenwood's song was a poignant and sentimental of reminder of who we were as Americans and what that meant to each of us. It was very moving, totally appropriate, and obviously memorable.

Don't get me wrong. We were focused and we believed we were ready, although none of us had ever flown a combat mission before in our lives, but in hearing Greenwood's song, we were at once reminded of the nation and the people we served. We were mindful of the rich panorama of our countryside and the unique nature of our America and what keeps it free. That was what we were there for. It was a radically touching moment as we strapped ourselves into our aircraft.

Sometimes, we think we need to plow ahead under the sheer force of our determination. Sometimes, plowing through our challenges isn't entirely pretty, though; sometimes riding the adrenaline to the finish leaves unfortunate "bull in a china shop" results.

And sometimes, we really need the calm precision of perspective to guide us to a righteous and measured outcome. That song helped bring that quieting perspective to me that night, and it remains a song and a memory with special meaning to me. Such is the power of little things in the right doses at the right time. It need not be a song but maybe just a reminder to step back into the quiet of one's own thoughts and sensibilities so we can consider what it's all really about.

God Bless the U. S. A.

by Lee Greenwood

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I’d worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.
I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.
And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
From the lakes of Minnesota,
to the hills of Tennessee.
Across the plains of Texas,
From sea to shining sea.
From Detroit down to Houston,
and New York to L.A.
Well there's pride in every American heart,
and its time we stand and say.
That I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
And I’m proud to be and American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

Abraham Lincoln: Tea Partier?

A headline last month read, "Obama: Abraham Lincoln Would Have No Place in Today's GOP." The suggestion, of course, is that not even Lincoln would be comfortable in today's "party of Lincoln." It seemed to be a provocative statement in a way so I thought I'd look into it to see whether Lincoln really would not have fit in with today's Republicans as the President suggested.

History tells us the Republican Party was formed in 1854 at a convention of disgruntled Whigs and Democrats who disagreed with the standard Democrat position of the day supporting the expansion of slavery west of the Mississippi. The Republicans presented their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, in 1856 who lost a three-way race that showed that if the Republican candidate in 1860 could carry two more large states like, say, Illinois, it could win in 1860. In 1860, the Republicans trotted out a relatively unknown senator from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, as its presidential candidate and, as we know, he won the election. The establishment of the Republican Party in 1854 turned out to be a precursor to the realignment of 1860. I knew all of that, but I hadn't ever really looked into the Republican Party platform from that 1860 election when Lincoln was the Republican presidential nominee and the de facto leader of the party.

So, after taking a look at the 1860 Republican Party platform, I'm left wondering if the 1860 Republican Party doesn't sound more like today's Tea Party than today's Republican Party. It seems today's Tea Party candidates had a lot in common with those 1860 Republicans, judging from "extremist" talk in the 1860 platform extolling the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, beating the drum to words like, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," remembering that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, arguing in favor of the rights of states, protesting an overreaching congress and judiciary, pushing back against a progressive application of the Constitution which at the time was used to argue in favor of slavery, recoiling against the extravagance of government and the plundering of the treasury, encouraging American industry and seeking rewards for "skill, labor and enterprise," touting the importance of the nation's "commercial prosperity and independence," and supporting the protection of legally naturalized citizens. I wonder if those views seemed as extreme to people back then as they seem to be to some today. I doubt it.

The Republican Platform of 1860

"Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituent and our country, unite in the following declarations:

1. That the history of the nation during the last four years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the republican party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature, and now more than ever before demand its peaceful and constitutional triumph.

2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the states, and the Union of the states, must and shall be preserved.

3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population; its surprising development of material resources; its rapid augmentation of wealth; its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may; and we congratulate the country that no republican member of congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of disunion so often made by democratic members, without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendancy, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.

4. That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state, to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.

5. That the present Democratic Administration has far exceeded our worst apprehension in its measureless subserviency to the exactions of a sectional interest, as is especially evident in its desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton constitution upon the protesting people of Kansas - in construing the personal relation between master and servant to involve an unqualified property in persons - in its attempted enforcement everywhere, on land and sea, through the intervention of congress and of the federal courts, of the extreme pretensions of a purely local interest, and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power entrusted to it by a confiding people.

6. That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the federal metropolis, show that an entire change of Administration is imperatively demanded.

7. That the new dogma that the Constitution of its own force carries slavery into any or all of the territories of the United States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that instrument itself, with cotemporaneous exposition, and with legislative and judicial precedent, is revolutionary in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the country.

8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no "person should be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law," it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.

9. That we brand the recent re-opening of the African Slave Trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity, and a burning shame to our country and age, and we call upon congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.

10. That in the recent vetoes by the federal governors of the acts of the Legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting slavery in those territories, we find a practical illustration of the boasted democratic principle of non- intervention and popular sovereignty, embodied in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and a demonstration of the deception and fraud involved therein.

11. That Kansas should of right be immediately admitted as a state, under the constitution recently formed and adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of Representatives.

12. That while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.

13. That we protest against any sale or alienation to others of the public lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of the free homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or suppliants for public bounty, and we demand the passage by congress of the complete and satisfactory homestead measure which has already passed the house.

14. That the Republican Party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws, or any state legislation by which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded by emigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad.

15. That appropriation by Congress for river and Harbor improvements of a National character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the constitution and justified by the obligation of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

16. That a railroad to the Pacific ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a daily overland mail should be promptly established.

17. Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive principles and views, we invite the cooperation of all citizens, however differing on other questions who substantially agree with us in their affirmance and support.

Supplementary Resolution. Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with those men who have been driven, some from their native States and others from the States of their adoption, and are now exiled from their homes on account of their opinions; and we hold the Democratic Party responsible for this gross violation of that clause of the Constitution which declares that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

One Pat or Two?

Some thoughts about the TSA body scan/radical pat-down drama.

Change you can believe in. It's ironic that the same people who squalled on and on about the Patriot Act think it's okay to conduct revealing body scans of every person who passes through certain airports whether there is probable cause or not. Of course, the safety and security argument prevails; it's just interesting to see these people use that argument.

Let's be dignified about this. Of course, we need to conduct these expensive and technologically elaborate full body scans because we believe it's beneath the dignity of our national security initiative to extract a template of our enemies and apply that profile to travelers.  We have the odd sense that it is better to impose radical search techniques on the general public than it is to know our enemy well enough to recognize him, his behaviors, his patterns, etc.

True believers. I wonder to what extent the commercial interests of former politicians and scanner manufacturers influence public policy on profiling.

Offense versus defense. The U. S. government admits the reason we need body scanners is to protect against future underwear bombers. Wouldn't we be better off if we employed a strategy that identifies threats before they fail? Sorry, that sounds like profiling again... It's difficult for us to buy into the idea of going on the offense in our own county, but doing so would help seize the creative initiative from our enemies. I hope we eventually figure out that the trick is to own the initiative rather than react to someone else's.

Desperate measures. Is there any reason we should not believe a bomber who is willing to destroy not only the aircraft, but also himself might not be opposed to the idea of having a bomb implanted into his body out of the view of body scanners? How shocked will we be to learn that's where this is headed. We'll either learn it before that happens or afterward.

Last one standing. Will our enemies run out of tactics before we run out of ways to discover them? When we ultimately discover it's far more prudent to find bombers than it is to find bombs, we will have taken the first step in shutting these guys down. Sorry, that sounds like profiling again... I hope we figure it out before we learn these guys bomb things other than airplanes.

Budget-buster. I remember how the mere threat of the development of Star Wars technology in the United States drove the Soviet Union to massive spending on its defense infrastructure. As an already highly skittish regime before Star Wars, the Soviets had already redirected a generous portion of its wealth and national attention to its security interests to the extent that it severely strained its economy and overburdened its citizens. Competition with Star Wars drove it even deeper into trouble. How heavy will the burden of an increasingly expensive reaction to a persistently evolving terror threat be on the American purse and psyche?

Full body scans of every passenger are predictable and expensive. The next generation of airport security measures will be just as predictable and even more expensive. I'm completely supportive of doing what it takes to keep us safe, but I think it's time for us to be more creative, exercise more initiative, and go on the offense against these people in our own country. Sorry, does that sound like profiling again?

Way to Go, GEICO!

I'm sure you've seen the GEICO Insurance commercial where the squirrel runs out into the middle of the road, causing a car to swerve and run off the road. After the car crashes, the critter's little squirrel buddy runs out and they high-five and dap each other. They're pretty proud of themselves and GEICO rubs it in with their preaching about how easy it is to get GEICO.

So, I was driving down a narrow road early yesterday morning when a squirrel ran out in front of my car just like that one did in the GEICO commercial. The road was fairly narrow so I didn't even hesitate in my decision to bear down on that squirrel rather than steer out of my lane to miss it.

Before you judge me as insensitive and cruel, let me say that there was no way that I was going to veer off the road into a ditch or a tree and leave a couple of tree-climbing rodents to high-five each other in the middle of the street at my expense.

Instead, I lined up on that squirrel. He got all bug-eyed when he realized he was dealing with a little different breed of cat here because I wasn't going to swerve. He jinked to my left, then he juked to my right, then he ran like a scalded dog to my left into the ditch that he was trying to get me to run off into.

My first reaction was that that was poetic justice. Instead of me ending up in the ditch, that gloried rat took his turn in it. I started thinking that we drivers might be beginning to figure some things out. We're gripping our steering wheels a little tighter and we're sticking to our lanes. We're not swerving, we're not slowing down, we're not even cringing at the thought of what might happen to one of these adorable little things if they don't get out of the way. Let them face that moment of indecision! Let them experience that momentary panic! Let them have a little taste of ditch water! "Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance." Right... Tell that to the squirrel I ran off into the ditch yesterday, GEICO!

Easy now...

Okay, let's put all of that aside... I sit here in the calm of a new day, wondering about how that commercial has affected other drivers, and just how many squirrels that commercial has killed. I wonder how many drivers see what I saw - a squirrel just sitting there in the middle of the road - and decide to center up the hood ornament on the squirrel rather than meet the unfortunate fate that the driver in the GEICO commercial did. How many squirrels have been flattened because they thought the driver was going to steer clear, but didn't?

And whose fault is that anyway? After yesterday morning's incident, when I see a dead squirrel in the street, I'm thinking, "There's another squirrel that GEICO got killed."

Way to go, GEICO!

The Dreaded Next Generation

As I walked into the grocery store the other day, I stopped to grab a shopping cart at the same time a woman next to me reached for one. As we turned to walk into the store, three women walked out. I didn’t really take note of them because they were fairly unremarkable to me, but the woman standing beside me did.

As I turned toward her to allow her to enter the store ahead of me, she just looked at me and shook her head as though we shared a sense of dismay at something we had both heard or seen. I had no idea what specifically she might be shaking her head about, so I simply greeted her with a “how’re you doing today?”

She answered that she couldn’t believe the way women dress when they go out today. I assumed she was referring to the three women who had just left the store, so I went along and shook my head saying as sincerely as I could, “it’s amazing, isn’t it?” I still really had no idea what she was talking about.

She went on to tell me that she is a 73-year old woman and that she’s old and fat and wouldn’t be caught dead in clothes like that. That was more information than I was expecting to pick up right there at the door of the grocery store and I didn’t really know what to say, so I said, “No, no, you’re fine…” and dismissed myself to get after those groceries.

As eager as I was to just move myself along, that brief encounter stuck with me for a few minutes. It occurred to me that with each generation, the clothing of the next generation is too revealing, the music is too loud, and they’re too darned boisterous in public. It seems that each generation is worse than the one before and in another 25 years or so, people will be walking around with no clothes on at all and they will be listening to music that is so loud they won’t be able to hear me complain about it when I’m 75.

So, all I ask of that generation is this: when that happens and I run into you on my way into the grocery store 25 years from now and I’m standing there shaking my head at all of the naked people running around, at least act like you’re listening when I tell you I’m old and fat and wouldn’t be caught dead without clothes like that. And be sure to tell me, “No, no, you’re fine…” It won’t change the way I dress in public, but I’ll feel better… if I can hear you over your blasted music.