I am not interested in global opinion, elite media spin, or the inane advice of another blue ribbon panel. The US military is f#cking owed its opportunity to finish what it was ordered to start. Nothing else matters, because as Charlie Rangel says, nobody in this country has any connection to the military anyway so why should they care if we want the job done right?

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

I was wondering. Does this mean destroying the cities in order to save them?

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.

I'm not sure turning Fallujah into Carthage is a surefire way to success. But then again, it might. And as I am so fond of reading in leftist news organs, it's not like the situation in Iraq could get worse, now is it?

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.