I see the Iraq War as a sign of desperation, not strength.

Let us look at the evidence. Our economy is not merely dependent on raw materials from abroad, it is becoming more and more dependent on intellectual horsepower from countries like India and Muscle power from China.Our most famous brand names like Coca Cola,Levi's,IBM need overseas customers for most of their profits.Any bad behavior on our part is going to be punished in the market place by boycotts.Our automotive industry, of course, is losing ground at an alarming rate.
We are net capital importers from Japan and China which are holders of a vast amount of our debt.

In these circumstances, I would say the only thing that can even give us the bragging rights to being number one in anything would be our military might.Bush-Cheney and Rumsfeld are doing just that.They are picking the weakest guy on the block, beating the shit out of him and stealing his money to show just who is boss.

Of course, when we deplete our resources wastefully, the bills come due and we are going to face a situation where nobody wants to pick up the tab for our war unless our interest rates go through the roof.

So, War and Ignorance and Macho Posturing are not signs of strength.They are signs of weakness and desperation.

So that they can cut costs. Decline and Fall of a civilization.

this is an outrage! people pay good money to fly in airplanes, they deserve all the comforts of home.:silly:

The decline of goods and services is always an indicator.

Imagine my surprise when I saw strap hangers on that short flight!
As they say, be thankful for your blessings.

surprised? Sometime ago, a CEO of USAir, was praised by one of the business weeklies because he eliminated olives from the salads they were serving on board! This was a guy who was a Harvard MBA, no less!Such are the ways of our world.

The insurgency grows stronger every day. I don't think things will change much after the elections in January. The Shiites might start joining the Iraqi Army and take over battling the Sunnis and foreigners after they are trained, but I doubt it.

training and our arms, watch them make a 180 degree turn and train their gunsights on us.The rich and strong will never understand the weak and the poor.They think the weak love them but what the poor have for them is contempt.

Even in Sun Tsu's ART OF WAR it says war is wasteful and should not be pursued for greed or anger, and must be a last resort, otherwise you will be defeated...

Say that now, and you'll be called fucking pacifist hippie pinko surrender monkey by the insane fucks on the right wing.

Just as stupid and arrogant as the right, only pretending to be on our side.