Democrat: Iraq Makes US More Vulnerable

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services panel says the Bush administration has not allocated sufficient resources to protect the nation from attack.

Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton said the effort in Iraq is preventing the U.S. from effectively preparing for other conflicts and putting at risk the United States' ability to defeat those most likely to attack. -- Mail.com / AP News

This is absolute bollocks. Iraq, however badly executed, is in fact an investment to prevent far worse conflicts in the future. Nor is it causing those conflicts to be worse. History shows repeatedly that perception of the rightness of a cause is closely tied to its success. Only if we cave in will history regard us as the evil perpetrators. Stay the course, allow Iraq to evolve as it is evolving, and we'll find it never led to the sort of attack the Democrat is speaking of.

Stubbing Out the Spirit

I'm sad that the Olympics have become so irrevocably politicized. It will be very unlikely henceforth for any Olympic Games to avoid descending into nationalist posturing and anti-nationalist protesting. Sure, China deserves a black eye. But the Olympic Spirit should be allowed to rise above all that and represent the striving and the discipline of the common man and woman turned athlete. We should try and ignore the specifics of any country involved, and simply celebrate a bringing together of disparate peoples.

Maybe, after this trend has run its course over the next half century or so, the Olympics can be decoupled from nationalism. Maybe, instead of countries and nations, the original Greek city-sates can find their modern representation in either countries or self-identified regions, with identification as an Olympic participant limited by a cap on population. Of course, this would encourage far more heated rivalries within countries than ever existed between them, but what the hell.