I realize it was not your opinion piece Alan however do you
really believe Exxon - Mobil, British Petroleum, DICK Cheney, Ken
Lay and a whole host of other PNAC picking Ahems really and
truely had the most noble of intentions in Iraq?

We can add Ahmad Chalibi, Zarcowi, Osama bin Laden to the list of similarly
interested and demented personages and entities to the list IMHO.

I am just inquiring of *your* opinion and not that of the author of the piece
you posted. 

We can add Chalibi, Zarcowi, Osama and a host of other players to the
very same list if you ask me.

I say it's about wealth and power unchected by balances Constitutional
whether you be a secular humanist, right winged Xian zealot nut jobber
or an infidel.

I am most proudly declaring myself to be a secular humanist infidel for 
one and all right here and now. 

-=> ALAN HESS wrote to ALL <=-

 AH> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.cutandrun10apr10,0,
 AH> 739442
 AH> 4.story?coll=bal-pe-opinion

 AH> From the Baltimore Sun
 AH> Sometimes, these colors must run


 AH> By Tom Matthews

 AH> April 10, 2007

 AH> Running away.

 AH> It is taboo to even utter the words in relation to battle. Once the war
 AH> is engaged, once the armaments start roaring, once your fellow soldiers
 AH> begin falling dead on either side of you - even once you understand
 AH> that your leaders have failed you - there is but one way to go:
 AH> forward, ever forward. Be victorious or be dead, but never be found
 AH> heading in the other direction. So say all those who bravely define
 AH> courage from the plush foxholes of punditry and chicken hawk
 AH> patriotism, having never tasted warfare themselves.

 AH> But consider Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith's immortal line: "He who
 AH> fights and runs away, may live to fight another day." It has those two
 AH> deplorable words - runs away - so I always took it to be nothing but a
 AH> coward's rationalization for retreat. But if one accepts the blunt
 AH> reality that despite the most noble intentions, sometimes the enemy is
 AH> simply more savage or more determined or luckier than the good guys,
 AH> there often comes a time in war when anything other than retreat means
 AH> suicide.

 AH> Sometimes warriors have to run away - when to do otherwise is madness.

 AH> Here's Goldsmith's entire quote, the latter half of which I would guess
 AH> most have never heard: "He who fights and runs away, may live to fight
 AH> another day, but he who is in battle slain, can never rise and fight
 AH> again." Is this cowardice, or hard pragmatism?

 AH> Because there will be "another day." And another, and another after
 AH> that. I know, because the Bush administration told me. Back before the
 AH> mantra was, "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight
 AH> them here," the White House repeatedly threatened that there would be
 AH> another 9/11-style attack on American soil. Back when it was important
 AH> to scare the heck out of us because a campaign was on, we were told
 AH> almost matter-of-factly that a military presence would be needed one
 AH> day soon to combat more horrors here at home, not to mention all the
 AH> new battlefields throughout the world.

 AH> And guess what? By any measure, Iraq has left our services decimated.
 AH> Almost every expert familiar with military readiness says we will not
 AH> be able to respond with the force needed the next time action is
 AH> required. All as we continue to weaken our defenses further while
 AH> trapped in the middle of someone else's civil war.

 AH> Will Iraq descend into further chaos if troops are withdrawn? Perhaps,
 AH> but better that hell now than five years from now. The sooner we get
 AH> that nightmare in our rearview mirror, the sooner we can begin making
 AH> our troops healthy and whole again, so we'll be prepared for the
 AH> blowback that our disastrous actions in Iraq have all but guaranteed.

 AH> We can begin to figure out how we can retain soldiers who have been
 AH> overextended and sent into battle with insufficient protection. We can
 AH> begin to figure out where the new recruits are going to come from now
 AH> that potential enlistees know that not only might their commanders send
 AH> them to war unprepared and under false pretenses, but that if they are
 AH> wounded they may be left to rot in a tangle of government bureaucracy
 AH> and incompetence. We can begin to resupply the depleted stores of gear
 AH> and weaponry. We can begin to learn from the horrifying list of
 AH> mistakes made throughout this campaign, so we can get it right the next
 AH> time.

 AH> On another day.

 AH> Tom Matthews wrote the film "Mad City" and the novel
"Like We Care."
 AH> His e-mail address is likewecare{at}wi.rr.com.

 AH> Copyright + 2007, The Baltimore Sun | Get Sun home delivery

 AH> --- Msged/2 6.0.1
 AH> (1:261/1000)

... Peroxide blonde died in tragic freak hair lightening procedure, more at 11
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.47