Some time ago, Tom correctly said, "the sword is unsheathed." This is sadly true, and until the sword is bloodied, it probably won't be put up.

Where it might stop is anybody's guess. Suddenly we are sending troops to the Philippines. Things that make you go, hmmm?

Try and recognize what is happening. We are invading one country to strike out at terrorists world wide. Are about to invade Iraq as part of our "war of infinite justice?" To wage war against Iraq and then Korea and then ---(insert nation of your choice) is a formula for national bankruptcy.

In 1971 the Nixon administration declared a "war against drugs" and said illegal drugs would be stamped out in the US in ten years. This Republican administration funded the war with ten billion dollars.

Thirty-two years later we have not won that war and the federal government is spending $20 billion a year in a losing effort. The States spend nearly that amount also. The only result for nearly one trillion dollars that have been spent is the creation of artificially inflated prices for substance by the artificial scarcity the government has created. This keeps the price of drugs high and profits protected.

Now we attempt to engage in a world-wide war against a group of guerilla criminals and risk turning it into a religious war.

There is no question that Iraq has a leadership that is presently unfriendly to the US. Saddam might well be called a madman--he is a brutal leader. Of course, let us not forget he was our ally and we supported and armed him in his war against Iran.

This war pleases the extreme Muslim fanatics, because it puts them in a win-win situation. Iraq is way to secular to suit them and the brand of Islam has too much Western influence in the society and they will be glad to see Saddam's rein ended. And it will be a recruiting pitch to see "the great Satan" invading Islamic lands.

We thus enter into guerilla warfare.A guerilla knows he cannot beat his enemy in a pitched battle, so he hits with his limited resources at carefully-selected targets - blowing up trains...shooting
archdukes...or driving commercial aircraft into skyscrapers - inviting his opponent to strike back with massed force.

"The immediate object here is neither the conquest of the enemy's territory nor the defeat of his armed force," said Carl von Clausewitz "but merely to do him damage in a general way."

If the god of war smiles on your cause,
the enemy is provoked to attack in force and then he is worn out by "a gradual exhaustion of the physical powers
and of the will by the long continuance of exertion."

That is what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. It is what happened to the British against Washington in our revolution (Washington only won two battles while losing six during the Revolutionary War.)

Certainly it couldn't happen to modern U.S. forces too?

Publius