Well, I do think manufacturers (of war-making machinery) should still get their "salary," just not the huge corporate profits. Does that make me a collectivist or something?

If they work voluntarily and you seize the profits, it makes you a thief. If they are forced to work, it makes you a slave-keeper.

Maybe a better solution is to elect a government that has less use for munitions? It's like drugs: the problem is really on the demand side of the equation.

...in his latest opinion piece at Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/how-to-end-the-war-make-_b_59896.html

Essentially, he makes a case for ending the war by introducing legislation that would redeploy soldiers to our domestic borders, thus forcing GOP hardliners to choose between Bush and their base on the really hot topic of immigration, calculating that a veto-proof majority could be put together for such a deal. He admits it's like making sausage...

These foreign policy planners love scholarship the way people who run dog fights love dogs. All life has taught them is to adhere to orthodoxy come what may. They believe that thinking is dangerous and change is always bad. In many ways their mediocrity as thinkers is even more dangerous to the world than the weapons they have to play with.

“Peace by Force”

It has been said: “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make her drink”. Current events suggest that this notion may not be entirely true. For if it is my view that the horse should drink and if I happen to be bigger and stronger and willing to do anything to impose my will then I can. I can wrap the strength of my arms around the throat of the horse and thrust her head into the water holding it there until she either drinks or drowns.

In this case, if the horse drinks, it is because she is now aware of my strength and my willingness to use it. For this reason she is afraid of me. I stand over her ready to again wrap my arms around her throat and force her head into the water. So she continues to drink when and according to the precise manner in which I say she should drink. If she refuses to do so and other horses become involved in our conflict I can say it is the fault of the first horse since, after all, if she had simply adopted my world view and been cooperative we would not be in this mess at all.

If she ceases to resist because submission is preferred over slaughter I can call this “peace”. If the lesser armed or the lesser willing to inflict horror on one’s fellow horses submits I can call this “peace”.

In this reality my soul cries out until the marrow in the center of my bones vibrates. If we are the stronger and if we are the wealthiest then we can provide water to any horse that does not have water. When the horse becomes thirsty she will drink the water. If the water evaporates before she is thirsty we can provide more water. We are the stronger. We are the wealthiest. To offer the water again and again is no significant sacrifice for us. When the horse becomes thirsty she will drink. If we continue to force her head into the water she will learn to hate us. Afterward, given the opportunity, she will stomp us and trample us into the ground until we are dead.

But if we simply continue to provide the water - when the horse becomes thirsty and drinks from the water we have provided she might appreciate us and she might even think of us as friends. This we might all call “peace”.

John Franklin, PhD

08/04/2007

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink.

Okay, pretty conventional thinking.

Wisdom from the past, in fact.

Then I read your . . . . (how do we describe this delicately? How about piece of sh!te?) . . . and I have to say, Jaysus, but you are one self-important silly little man. Sheesh.

Wanna end the war?

Let's play let's pretend

Let's pretend first that Damascus is Hiroshima

Le't pretend that Tehran, given than any of the Mullahs are still around after Damascus, is Nagasaki.

Presto end of war.

Wassa the problem?