One great advantage to thinking first and reaching your conclusions later is the possibility of making the refreshing discovery that each issue can be addressed on its own merits.

So it is that the Somalia, Bosnia and Haiti operations each has its own characteristics, highs and lows, and overall merits, all of which, no doubt, will be the subjects of historical and political debate for decades to come.

But I would just mention in passing that surely you must recall that it was actually Pres. GHW Bush who got us into Somalia in the first place, and Pres. Clinton who got us out of there.

I hasten to add that there was an enormous humanitarian crisis at the time which impelled Pres. Bush to act in concert with a coalition of nations, and with a general consensus among all good people that something had to be done to help the starving E. Africans.

And also, I'm sure you will recall, it was public outcry after the Battle of Mogadishu (Blackhawk Down) which motivated an accelerated, and successful U.N./U.S. withdrawal from Somalia.

But in the current situation, with the Bush admininstration menacing Iraq, world opinion is strongly against such aggression, and we have Americans, in significant numbers, turning out to protest the war before it has even begun, a situation which is probably unprecedented.

As Mike Ruppert puts it: "This is the first time in modern American history that there has been a vocal anti-war movement before the war even started."

sp