Something we should all remember about the cost of war - and Gitmo.
I have been reading an old book by cartoonist Bill Mauldin. "Up Front" is a collection of cartoons and stories from WWII, and I found an interesting part about half way through.
He describes a soldier finding two Germans huddled together in a foxhole, who cuts the throat of one, leaving the other one to wake up and know what happened. Mauldin reports that a lot of his fellow soldiers started following suit, to spread terror amongst the enemy.
I have heard similar stories about WWI, Korea, and Vietnam. The trick was probably used by Attila the Hun somewhere. My point is that the current wars, with all their atrocities, have been like any other war in history - except that now they are seen by civilians, on cable news.
The real lessons of Gitmo and Abu Gharib are that war creates monsters out of our sons and daughters. It takes people who have been taught never to kill, and teaches them that violence solves their problems. It numbs them to atrocities and death, until they accept it as a part of life.

That is the cost of war, the cost to us. That is why starting a war should be avoided, if there is any - ANY - other way.
That is why the current war, made on false pretenses and lies, such a crime. Because of what it does to us. Because of what it does to our children.

Take half the Military budget for this year, and give it to the FBI.
That is my advice to the Federal government on the subject of The War On Terror.
We have the wrong mindset when dealing with the terrorists, both here, in Britain, and in Iraq. We are not dealing with an organized force, with guns, tanks, and planes. We are dealing with gangs. A terrorist group is 4 guys and their plastique. They are not tacticians, they are martyrs. They know enough to read the Koran and build a bomb.
You don't need a battalion to beat a terrorist group. They aren't that tough. You need a SWAT team, or a realy good Navy SEAL. Beating them is not the problem.
The problem is finding them. That's why we need to fund the FBI.
Unfortunately, it's also why we need to dump John Bolton.
God knows the UN needs to be revamped, but right now, the US needs friends and sympathy more than anything. It needs hundreds and thousands of foreigners who are sympathetic the America, and are therefore willing to pass along overheard conversations and suspicious names. Without these sympathizers, America is blind.
Being blind in a war zone gets you shot.

Once again, the battle over man in space is being waged.
The Space Shuttle launch has been delayed for technical reasons, the main one being that they are the spaceship equivalents of a 47 Chevy - still useable, but outdated. Contrast this to the Mars rovers and Hubble telescope, which are sending us amazing pictures and data.
Why should men go into space anymore? Why send men instead of probes?
Answer - you shouldn't. If all you want is pictures.
Here are a few reasons you may not have thought of.
1) It's dangerous, and we like danger. How many people bungee jump? How many watch car races for the crashes? We WANT to do dangerous things, and survive. If we don't have something useful to do that's dangerous, we invent useless dangerous pastimes. Space travel is the greatest thrill ride of them all, and potentially the most valuable. We need to go.
2) It has great ego value. Every nation wants to compete, to show their worth to every other. Most of the time, they have used armies. But in the Age of Discovery, they competed by sponsoring exploration in Africa and America. With no new frontiers, we are going back to fighting. Why not channel that competition into the Final Frontier?
Humans need space travel - for economic reasons, scientific reasons, and for psychological reasons. Let's go.

In future, fools will call this a Golden Age.
Perhaps it was a tarnished gold, for those in the first world. But tarnished it was.
After all, this has been the age of cheap fuel. Never again will we have such easy access to petroleum and its products. Energy, too, has been plentiful, to the point where a blackout has been cause for outrage, rather than resignation. We have had plenty of food; we have had so MUCH food that we are actually suffering from the amounts we eat. For the first time in history, we have an industry devoted to removing fat!
We have lived our lives in a world of instant gratification. We expect our entertainment available whenever we want, we want our favorite foods within reach. We even get upset when our wars are not won in months.
And with all this wealth and power, what have we accomplished?
We have the knowledge to go to the moon - and we don't. We do, however, spend enough money for 10 moon missions on watching a space mission led by Obi-Wan Kenobi.
We have a huge mutual database/communication facility called the Internet - and we use it for junk mail.
We have a large and intricate information distribution program called television - and we use it to distribute propaganda and fiction, to the point where we cannot discern true from false.
We have the means to alleviate poverty, sickness, and ignorance on a wide scale - and refuse to do so unless it enriches us.
What a wonderful folk we are. How glorious our society.

My heart goes out to all those whose friends and relatives died in the London bombings. Hopefully, we will not get too caught up in raving about revenge to remember to help you.