Good point larry. And the candidate Bush seemed to understand this. As a president, he has fallen into the very trap that he critisized before his election. When he said "America cannot afford to police the rest of the world," he was absolutely right. As Greenspan tried to explain, we either accept our red ink crusade to Americanize the 3rd world and forget about priorities such as Social Security and Healthcare, or we start prioritzing with a clear picture of the real threats to our way of life. We might as well be trying to stop the flow of the Euphrates by pissing into it as try to change that culture into one that respects democratic ideas. That change has to have at least a spark from within, just as happened in the Soviet Union. Despite being the "cradle of civilization," that area stopped having social evolution a long time ago. We are wasting our money and the lives of many trying to change them to be like us. Best to destroy all that threatens us and get the hell out. What is this compulsion to rebuild our enemies? It may have been cost-effective with Japan and Germany, but they were truly passified and tired of war. The Iraqi or Viet Namese cultures knew nothing but war, so our overtures continue to fall on deaf ears.