A little common sense. First, terrorism is a tactic. Now, to protect oneself from this tactic, and the perps, one can either close the borders and persecute any citizen who looks strange. Bush is trying that, though 3 million, count 'em, 3 MILLION, people cross the border illegally each year.

Next, to protect oneself, one should have friends. That's not bottle-rocket science, even. The more friends the better. Big friends, little friends, and all the in-between friends. The terrorists have to breed somewhere, need a base, need support and logistics.

That can all be interdicted with FRIENDS.

It would by nice if those friends had some sympathy for the victim of terror.

Now, the way Bush has gone about this has been to alienate friends, and do the almost incredible, almost impossible, he's created a whole lot of sympathy for the terrorists.

Had he targeted terrorism instead of oil, if he had targeted terrorists instead of the Iraqi population, he and the US would be sitting pretty.

As it is, his greedy grab, his haste to enrich Halliburton at the expense of the Iraqis, has left the US with precious few of that most valuable commodity, friends, and no sympathy. Just the opposite.

And Lileks is full of shit.

Arf