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WASHINGTON, DC--Citing a desire to finally make a difference in Iraq, in the past two weeks, more than 800,000 young people from upper-middle- and upper-class families have put aside their education, careers, and physical well-being to enlist in the military, new data from the Department Of Defense shows.

"I don't know if it was the safety and comfort of the holidays or what, but I realized that my affluence and ease of living comes at a cost," said Private Jonathan Grace, 18, who was to commence studies at Dartmouth College next fall, but will instead attend 12 weeks of basic training before being deployed to Fallujah with the 1st Army Battalion. "I just looked at my parents in their cashmere sweaters and thought, 'Who am I to go to an elite liberal arts college and spend all my time reading while, in the real world, thousands of kids my age are sacrificing their lives for our country?' It's not right."

Added Grace: "Whether I agree with the war or not, our president needs us, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let our least advantaged citizens bear the brunt of this awesome burden."

At the on-campus temporary recruitment table at Reed College in Portland, OR, the line of students eager to sign up for active duty stretched around the block Monday. Recruiters across the country reported a similar trend, with scores of young people asking how soon they could be ready to go to battle in Iraq.

"They don't have these recruitment centers where I live," said Daniel Feldman, 26, who resides in the affluent neighborhood of Brookline, MA and recently passed his bar exam. "I didn't realize you could just sign up, but now that I do, all of my friends from law school, yoga class, and temple are going to join, too. And not the Reserves either. We're talking down and dirty, right on the front lines."

Drill sergeants at boot camps in South Carolina and San Diego, though at first skeptical of the recent crop of potential Marines, said they have been impressed by their work ethic, claiming the wealthy youngsters' desire to "do their part" is undeniable.

3 explosions jolt southern Iran

But if America is ready for a military policy of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation, the timing of the change should be carefully considered. As the 110th Congress opens for business, some of its most urgent priorities, like developing a more effective strategy in Iraq, share widespread support that spans political affiliations. Addressing such issues could help heal the divisions that cleave our country. Fighting early in this Congress to lift the ban on openly gay service members is not likely to add to that healing, and it risks alienating people whose support is needed to get this country on the right track.

Here's my strategy for... well, whatever. President Bush has a very narrow timeframe to pursue the victory that he still claims to want in Iraq. He is outta here in two years and nobody but nobody who gets elected President will have a mandate for anything other than total withdrawal from Iraq. In other words, act now, while supplies last. The best chance that the Iraqi military will be able to take over control of its territory is if that territory has been purged of terrorists and militias. I say that we begin that purge... in earnest. The Iraqi Army is not ready for that kind of intense and complex operation so let's just allow them to sit back in reserve while we commence the bombardment of areas like Sadr City and Ramadi and other areas where undesirables are concentrated. I'm not talking a Fallujah style takedown either-I'm talking a Dresden/Tokyo style deal. Surround the city/neighborhood, tell the military age males who don't want any trouble to depart the city to the west, the rest to the east, wait a week, and bu-bye. Linebacker III

It is an interesting strategy. I wonder if it would work. It did not when Israel destroyed the homes of families of suicide bombers. And the Nazis tried to do it with French partisans. Did not work too well. I am not sure that the bombings of Dresden or Tokyo actually had caused the Germans or Japanese to stop fighting (or the bombing of London, for that matter). The same policy did not help much with the villages in Vietnam.

In fact, has this ever worked? Maybe the Roman destruction of Carthage would be a good example.

Some other ideas (on the theory that we should all try to be creative).

We could take a page out of the Roman book.

We could capture a bunch of insurgents and crucify them at 100 yard intervals on the road from Baghdad to Basra.

Perhaps decimation is the way to go. Pick out groups of 10 Iraqi men at random and kill every 10th one.

Or, as they did in Biblical times, it might be just best to get rid of the entire enemy population altogether, like they did in Jericho. Do you think we can get God to do a Sodom and Gemmorah on Iraq?

We could, of course, just leave and, as the last man leaves, drop a nuclear bomb.

The only other thing I can think of that might work is for all the young men out there who support the military and the troops, but not the war, to suck it up and join the military and provide those 300,000 additional troops Allan called for. All that brainpower that allows them to so effectively second-guess the administration and Rumsfeld (and soon to be Gates, YAY!!!) could be applied and harnessed against the insurgent/terrorist foe. They could combine their sensitivity and love for their fellow man and use it, you know, to just talk to these people who, after all, aren't really that much different from you/me. We're all human, right?

Maybe John Lennon said it best: Love is the answer.

An added side benefit of this left-wing/liberal take-over of the military effort in Iraq is that there would be no torture by American troops, because the new soldiers could provide oversight. Just imagine a scenario in which some of these dumb, redneck soldiers had gone out on a patrol and come back, with three of their number falling victim to an IED. And understandably, they would be, like, totally enraged. Wouldn't it be a good thing if, instead of these redneck/hick/stupid American soldiers going out and raping or murdering some innocent Iraqis, they could have one of these new soldiers to counsel them. To tell them to settle down. They could be, like: "Hey there, Private" (The new soldiers could all come into the Army as, say, Captains, sort of like Hawkeye and Pierce in MASH) "I know that piece of sausage in the back of that Bradley used to be your best redneck friend. And that's hard. I know, because I used to have a dog, and he got run over by my Daddy when I was five. But you know, dying as a soldier isn't as hard as being a black man in the South, you know? Dying as a Marine isn't as hard as being a woman in the corporate world and having to deal with the glass ceiling, right? So just be happy that you're not flying while Muslim! Haha. Because that sausage/white man died with his dignity, as a member of the privileged, and probably Republican, class in America. And he knew the risks when he signed up, right? Do not feel sorry for that sausage/soldier, or the child and wife and brothers/sisters and/or Mother/Father he left behind."

And then the new soldier and the redneck/hick soldier could just hug it out, until the anger went away.

After a few days, things would calm down, and the new soldiers could re-open the dialogue. They could establish their endless patience and love. Eventually the insurgents would put down their Dragunovs and their cell-phones, and the Americans would put down their m-4's and their SAWs and everyone could have a big picnic. The terrorist wives could boil up some goat, maybe barbeque up some ribs, and the new soldiers could contribute gluten-free garlic bread and explain the value of a macrobiotic diet using hand signals and talking extra-loud.

That would be awesome, wouldn't it?

I guess the only thing left is for Congress to remove 'Don't Ask Don't Tell,' so that good liberals can join the military in good conscience. Because 99% of them would join the military, but for this discrimination. They would love to serve, to do their little bit for America, but they can't. Homosexual rights are just too important to throw under the bus for some redneck/dumbass who was probably pro-life and against stem cell research and might have even believed that school vouchers, horror of horrors, were a good idea. Before he got turned into sausage by an IED, that is.

Soldiers of Fortune

An elite Army Ranger, back from Iraq, led his cohorts in a precision hold-up, cops say. If money wasn't the motive, what was?

By Rick Anderson To customers and employees in the Bank of America branch that Monday, the invaders rushing through the door had the appearance of commandos on a raid. Ski-masked men in heavy clothing, armed with automatic rifles and sporting soft body armor under their jackets, stormed the one-story South Tacoma BOA branch near closing time, shouting orders and forcing everyone to the floor.

The four-man robbery team brandished handguns, pointed AK-47s, and seemed ready for a firefight, bringing along extra banana-style ammunition clips. "That's a tremendous amount of weaponry and ammunition for a bank robbery," says assistant U.S. attorney Michael Dion in Tacoma.

Though apparently young and of average builds, the four seemed imposing and confident. At 5:15 p.m. Aug. 7, Purple Heart Day in America, they entered through the swinging glass doors on two sides of the neighborhood bank that is sandwiched among the storefronts and car lots of busy South Tacoma Way and almost immediately began counting off the seconds, one robber shouting out the time every half-minute.