It's not to hard to put myself in the mindset of a contractor.

Here I was, a Marine Corp sniper with two tours behind me and nothing to show for it except the gratitude of our grateful nation (ha!) and an uncertain future when my commitment is up.

What was I going to do when I got out? Last time I looked in the papers, there were no ads in the job section, "Snipers Wanted." I tried putting my resume on Monster dot com but they thought it was a joke. It wasn't. I'm good at what I do. And then I was reading Soldier of Fortune magazine and there was an ad in the back that said "Snipers Wanted." So I called them and set up an interview right here in country! I was still in my cammo BDUs, in the service of Uncle Sam with nine months left on my current tour.

Wow! Guess what! The contractor guy liked my stuff and said he'd start me at $15,000 a month tax-free paid into a Dubai bank that doesn't report income to the IRS! Holy shit, I hit the jackpot this time! And that was just the start he said if it worked out, I could be making twice that much for uh ... "special assignments" wink wink.

But when I told him I wouldn't be able to start for nine months, I thought that might be a deal-breaker. But guess what again! He said he had some connections at the DoD and that I could be put on stand down status and they would cut me new orders to go TDY and that I could still be in the Marine Corp, and work for a contractor at the same time and when I got back to the states when it's all over, I'd muster out with a great looking DD214 and be eligible for all veterans benefits too!

You can't beat a deal like that. So now here I am, doing the same shit I was doing before and instead of living in hot, stinky billet with no air conditioning, I'm staying in a hotel in the Green Zone when I'm not out cappin' hajis, I'm living pretty good. Every three months, they fly me down to Kuwait City for R&R and I get more pussy than P Diddy -- all fine lookin' European and Russian girls too! And it's all on the company tab.

Do I feel like I'm doing something sleazy? Hey man, that conscience thing died in me a long time ago. Look at those fat fuckers I'm working for, guys like Rummy and Cheney. They say they are patriots, but they are raking it in and salting it away. Look at the mansions they built on Maryland's Eastern shore. Why not grab a few crumbs that fall off their table. I ain't no rich man's son. I've got to get it while I can.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to strap it on and get rolling. There's an assignment out in Anbar. Some haji village sheik isn't cooperating with our guys. He's player. But not for long.

"The Iraqi government has taken initial steps to revoke immunity granted the contractors during the reign of the Coalition Provisional Authority, but there's been no definitive action yet."

Uh huh. Just send the Iraqi government another billion or two, on shrink-wrapped pallets of crisp new $100s, like last time. Just park that C-5 out there at the far end of the runway, roll the loot off onto some unmarked trucks, and presto, no more "steps to revoke immunity" for the Mercs.

In just seven short years, Bush's gunslinger "my way or the highway" style of diplomacy, coupled with the bungling of the most under-achieving Secretary of State we've ever had, has left our former allies with so little confidence in America that they are left to go their own way.

And Dubai is poised to become a financial and business hub strategically located where east meets west, between the growing markets of Southwest and Southeast Asia and Western Europe. New York is just a shabby, out-of-the-way place now. Don't believe it? Then why did Halliburton move lock stock and barrel to Dubai earlier this year? Count the number of European and Asian companies with headquarters in Dubai. Countries are making the Euro the currency of first resort instead of the U.S. dollar.

"Oh, but that's good for our export business," some people say. But that's only good if we have something to export. The Chinese have totally beat us in manufacturing, India is beating us in technology, and now the Europeans are bitch-slapping Boeing around.

Boeing's failure to win big in high-stakes Dubai is not just because they couldn't get a new model ready as fast as Airbus did. A good part of it is an indication of how the Bush administration has insulted and bullied the Middle East and this is just "blowback."

We have one more year of our rodeo clown/dime store cowboy and then we have a chance to start building the relationships and the trust he squandered. It will take decades, if ever, that we heal these rifts. Who will do it, the bellicose, saber-rattling Giuliani? Who will he get for Secretary of State, Bernie Kerik or maybe his wife Judi?

Pat, study those charts and landing patterns for Dubai. I have a feeling America will be beating a path to their door in coming years and not the other way around.