Well, no one's asked me what I would do, but I think both sides of this debate may be disappointed to learn where I stand on this position.

For starters, I do believe we are at war, and certain adjustments to business as usual do have to be made. We need to suspend civil liberties sufficiently to intercept communications, hold and interrogate prisoners, and investigate suspects. This includes ethnic profiling and wiretaps and review of financial and internet records, and yes, even library records. I also believe we need to take measures to protect facilities which may involve not only inconvenience to citizens but intrusions and searches which we would not normally tolerate in peacetime. The terrorists are no fools, they aren't going to attack us the same way they did the last time, they'll find another way, like they tried in Britain. And it was UK intelligence that caught them, not ours. I suspect some Zoners hearing this from me may be upset, but that's the way I see it.

But I think these things would happen anyway, and although there would be widespread public opposition to these measures, the majority of the American public would accept it due to the nature of the emergency, as they do so now. This is how any modern state would react to the post 9/11 environment and it is naive to believe this kind of war could be fought otherwise. I don't think any other administration, Republican or Democratic, would have handled it any differently than Bush did.

And I do believe this is a war, it is a clash of civilizations, and the enemy is determined to cause as much destruction and humiliation to America and its friends as possible. It is necessary for our survival as a civilization that we do whatever is necessary to contain this threat, and if possible, annihilate it. I firmly believe people who do not understand this are severely misled, and mistaken.

Where I believe the current administration has failed is in the conduct of its international operation of the war. It has succeeded in uniting those who were traditional enemies against us. It has bullied and intimidated and insulted its allies and neutrals and succeeded in alienating nations which after 9/11 were sympathetic to our cause. It has done this by acting unilaterally and ignoring international conventions and organizations when they failed to rubber-stamp our demands. It has entered into a pointless and ill-planned war because of its geopolitical calculations which has failed and now backfired into a festoring sore which it refuses to withdraw from simply because it is afraid to lose face. It has squandered treasure and lives on foreign battlefields without any military objectives other than a victory which it cannot even define, much less achieve. And it has created infinte future enemies by unleashing modern war on peoples who just happened to be in the way. It has spread resources from Afghanistan to Iraq, from a necessary operation to a questionable one, to the point where now even the tide in Afghanistan has turned against us.

One of my first posts for this forum was a detailed list of the reasons why I thought the Bush administration went to war in Iraq, so I need not cover that ground again. Whether or not these considerations were both valid and achievable can only be decided by history, and so far, the verdict is starting to look bad for the Bush team. We do not yet have a puppet state in the region able to intimidate Arab or Iranian foes, we have not financed our war and secured a source of petroleum, we have not initiated a capitalist democratic and liberal regime anywhere in the Middle East, we have not even devoted the military resources needed to fully occupy and control a hostile nation after we defeated its emasculated army. We can't even deliver public utilities and order.

But worst of all, we have lost the trust of the world. We attacked and invaded another country in order to institute the geopolitical goals we had defined, NOT because it was a threat to us. Sure, when the invasion began I believed in the WMDs and Al-Quaeda connections which might have justified it, but they have been shown to be wrong. And the more time passes the less I'm convinced it was a misjudgement. The rest of the world is convinced it was a deliberate lie and the more I think about it the more reasonable that sounds to me.

The reason the world hates and distrusts us is because we're the most powerful nation on earth and we invade other countries for no other reason than to set up friendly regimes and secure oil. Perhaps at one time this may have seemed a valid tactic to use in defense against our terrorist enemies, but not any more. To begin with, it didn't work. Second, the world, and the American people are tired of the excuses: WMDs, Al-Quaeda, Saddam was a bad guy, bringing democracy, , preserving democracy, fighting the terrorists there instead of here, now its preventing a civil war which already started a year ago.

Even from the Bush perspective, his own objectives are threatened by his own failures. The armed forces are exhausted and enlistments are dropping, their magnificent morale and training isn't re-enlisting. Without proper backup and maintenance forces, our equipment is breaking down in that harsh environment and has to be abandoned or blown up to keep it out of enemy hands. We've lost more vehicles to desert wear and tear than we have to enemy action because our forces are top-heavy, not enough support personell.

And who has benefitted from this, only the civilian contractors who are taking up more and more of the duties which used to be undertaken by military support people, such as cooks, construction battalions, etc., everything from building runways to drilling for water. It's all Bechtel, Kellog, Brown and Root, and other pals of the old Pentagon/Big business axis of evil headed up by Cheney and Rumsfeld.

And at home, politically, the response of the administration is the denouncing of anyone, even its potential supporters such as myself, that they are traitors or cowards because we dare to criticize and question their policies. In the meantime, the domestic agenda has collapsed. Emergency services failed their test with Katrina, who knows how they will react to a military attack. Deficit spending, not just from the war, but from pork barrel and tax cuts is wrecking the economy, we are in hock to the Chinese, Japanese and the Saudis, the balance of payments has gone in the toilet, while our solons argue about gay marriage, flag burning and prayer in the schools.

Bush cannot blame the problems of his presidency on the liberals any more. There are no more liberals.