Comrade Scott,
I didn't think anyone but me read "granma internacional". Viva!!
But soon Fidel will be gone and Cuba will surely change. Even Daniel Ortega down in Nicaragua is driving a luxury Hummer these days (sigh). JVL is probably has his shop poster of Augusto Sandino hanging unpsidedown already.
I never thought we should go into Iraq in the first place. I thought Iraq was already well contained militarily. But after the invasion, I also thought it was important to maintain solidarity with our troops. Now with Sadam out of the picture and the Iraq civil war getting into full bloom, it will take another maniac just like Sadam to hold that place together. I say the USA should not become that next maniac. Iraq should be allowed to brake up into it's 3 natural groups: Kurds, Sunni's and Shia's. I personally don't care if the Turks, or the Saudi's, or the Persians, or the Frencheese don't like it. It's going to end up that way eventually anyway.
Personally, I think Rumsfeld has done an admirable job in an unwinnable war. Had the President listened to conventional military wisdom or the pro-war Democrats and Republicans instead of Rumsfeld, we would now have 450,000 troops in exactly the same position. Rumsfeld kept the numbers down intentionally. Fewer U.S. targets to shoot at. I doubt he minds taking flak for it now.
Here at home, the Democrats now control both the US House and the Senate, but Nancy and the boys will no doubt simply focus on winning the next Presidential election.
US Policy toward Iraq during the next 2-years will probably change to whatever the bi-partisan Baker Commission report says it should be. (To be published soon)
The only guy in U.S. politics that seems to have landed exactly in the right place at the right time is Joe Leiberman. God Bless him. As an Independant Senator with a tie breaking vote he can single handedly prevent the Democrats from turning their backs on Israel.
Rich Smith
PS: Scott, I've recently become aquainted with a young guy that moved to Spokane not long ago so that he and his wife could have some breathing room. He's a welder and his wife just started a new storefront dog wash business in Spokane. He's also a vintage Dodge Colt fanatic and already had a 1974 GT with a SB Chevy in it and wanted more. So, over the past 3 months I've set him up with 3 more Colts. One of them was a caged unfinished Rally project I had inherited. Keep an eye out for it screamin' around on the backroads.
