Budgeting

If your resources are not unlimited, you make choices. All of us do. Buy this, but then you can't have that. Go down this path, and leave the other untravelled for now. Maybe later you can backtrack or if they intersect, pick up that one too. Most rational adults understand this: you just can't have it all.

Stories like these are what makes me wish, in retrospect, that we had chosen other options dealing with the Iraqi threat. There is no question of the nuclear capability in Iran, but our hands are somewhat tied now. Money and troops, not to mention public and military morale, are not unlimited. You have think before you spend. (And you have to unite the country to fight a war, it seems to me -- especially a war of attrition -- not mistake half of your own people as the enemy in questioning their patriotism. Such vileness should be directed at our enemies. You also want to bring as many people worldwide to the table, it would seem, to gain allies for the fight.)

Efficiency, bang for your buck, rules your options when resources are tight. Again, you can't have it all. What if a special forces unit had infiltrated Iraqi society and arrested, or assassinated, Saddam Hussein without destroying cities, causing collateral damage, and requiring occupation? That would have freed up resources to battle other future threats, right? (Not presuming to be an expert, just wondering aloud.)

Hopefully Iraqi women's rights, which are highly touted these days, will leave the women there better under the law, or at least equal to the rights they had before the new constitution is implemented. Staying inside sucks no matter where you live, and have you tried living without 24 hours of electricity recently? Since America did not invade when the mass killings of the Kurds were taking place, I'm not sure we can claim immediate danger to the people as the reason we invaded when we did. Seems that argument would hold now for intervention in some of the African countries, but that appears to be off the media radar screen for the most part and the immediate danger of death there for some reason doesn't seem to hold much sway.

Again, you should think out all possible options before taking action, right? I never saw Michael Moore's movie, haven't seen it proven that the administration intentionally distorted information or "lied", just that the intelligence community was not up to snuff and should set the bar a bit higher. I'm not a Pollyanna really, but I do like efficiency. Those who would argue President Bush "at least did something" might consider the better, more effective actions that could have been taken to quell potential threats that now appear unlikely. In short, did we attack the wrong country? It's a fair question, I think.

You have to live by the results of your choices, and push for the best. Let's all hope and pray: the armchair warriors don't fail or disintegrate -- I know I am hoping and praying for this not to happen; the fighting men and women know that we've got their back -- with eyes fully open and alert -- to the very end; the domino theory works and you can impose democracy by outside force. Faith is good, faith and foresight is better. GBA.