Sir; I grew up Catholic, so naturally I know how to fight. Have you ever been in a school yard fight where one side or the other or both did not say: I'm not scared of you! That is what all this nonsense with Iran is about, and my recommendation is to say: I am glad you're not scared of me because you have no reason to be. All those Persians are just like us. Their girls all want pretty Western noses, and their daddies all want to be republicans. Sure they want us to be scared, but not as much as they want to be Americans. We should let them. I mean, we should extend to them the same rights as ourselves as essential to their well being as ours are to us. This conflict has a precedent of sorts. And there is a lesson for us. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak in the sixteenth century, and was THE major military power in Europe. By the end of the following century it had begun its long period of decline. For a long time the Ottomans thought their problems were purely military, but their problems were really social. For example, Vasco De Gama had circumnavigated Africa in the fifteenth century, and the Middle East no longer stood at the crossroads of commerce. As early as 1580, one adviser to the Sultan observed that Europe's growing maritime power would soon bypass the overland route to the Orient, a threat to the Empire's economy. He advised the Sultan to send a fleet into the Indian Ocean to drive off the infidels; but such a cost was already beyond their reach. What if they had had nuclear weapons? We have reached the limit of our man power, and money, and that makes it all the more certain that some limited nuclear war is inevitable, -if we cannot figure out how to get along. We know Israel has Nukes. Let them start a war to show humanity what they are made of. For us, the safe course of action and the prudent one is to figure out exactly what these people need from us to be friends. We will never make good neighors. We will never be borrowing each others rakes. But we can quit fighting each other because there is no way to win with what we got, and every way that all of humanity can lose. Best. Sweeney

Did Pelosi really call Bush a failure? That is like fly calling a fly swatter a failure. When has he lost? When has he not been able to put them into a box they could not exit. If it were possible to put the whole democratrat party into a maze with no way out and no cheeze at the end, that they would think they were accomplishing something cause their feet hurt. You have to do more than tread water to get anywhere. You have to land a few punches to win a fight. No one doing nothing and calling it defense ever qualified as a leader, and that is their claim to fame. No new ideas; and just an alternative to the people who run things in or out of power. The whole democrat party is a failure. Just when I begin to believe that they just might accidently do something right, they let me down again. Ah Sweer. Best. Sweeney