The Middle East is like a bees nest. It's got honey, right, but also bees. Bee-hives are safe, if handled diplomatically. However, beat on them at one's peril.

Now Bush himself was afraid to go to Iraq, met al-Maliki in Jordan. Afraid to even go into the country.

Dignitaries all make secret, unannounced trips, Cheney's last in a military transport plane.

Govenment officials are afraid to travel outside the Green Zone in Iraq, or the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan, and it's news if they do.

"Security fears led US Vice President Dick Cheney to exchange his Air Force Two suite for a high-tech trailer chained to the floor of a cavernous military plane for his visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Obviously, the world is safer for Americans the way your yard is safer after the children beat on 3 or 4 large bee-hives for a while.

And to sit in the house claiming that it's nice the bees are outside and the way to make your world even safer is to beat on a few more hives, harder, doesn't seem rational.

Arf