This was published in the Reno News and Review today, 4-22-04
see the link below. I thought I'd share it with you guys here. Your
comments are welcome of course, use the link to the rotten
tomatoes thread for comments. You will have to regester to post
there.

http://www.newsreview.com/issues/reno/2004-04-22/guest.asp

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=328710

                        Scorpions, red ants and chicken hawks.

                                            © 2004 David M. Payne

As a kid I used to like to hunt scorpions in the fields around Reno.
They were hard to find because they hid under rocks and things
and usually only came out at night. They also had a nasty sting,
so I had to be careful around them. They kind of remind me of the
VC in Vietnam, and the Islamic terrorists today.

I also used to like to stir up red anthills. At first there would be a
few, but as soon as I stuck a stick in the anthill and killed some of
them, I got more. And the more I killed, the more red ants I had
attacking me. Even though I was bigger, stronger, and smarter,
had better weapons and air superiority, I could never kill a whole
anthill. In the end there were too many and they always drove me
away. I look at Iraq and wonder if we have found ourselves on top
of a really big red anthill.

As an Agent Orange diabetic Vietnam vet (USMC) who will
continue to pay his dues for the rest of his life for answering his
countries call to duty, I look at this mess in Iraq and think about
how we got here. I see a leadership that was gung ho to invade
Iraq, where Saddam was said to have WMD and was a threat to
the world. Well the WMD have proven to be elusive, though we
know he had them once, as he used them on the Kurds and
Iranians. And Hussein was a very bad man, so I'm glad for the
Iraqis that he is gone. Though there are not that many similarities
between Vietnam and Iraq, I think there are two we need to worry
about. Quagmire is one, and a determined fanatical foe is
another. Both of these things may well be in our future in Iraq, just
as they were in Vietnam.

Mr. Bush was "talking the talk" when he said "Bring It On" to our
Islamic terrorist foes. But when he and many members of his
administration and supporters had the chance to "Get It On" with
the rest of us who served in Vietnam or Korea, they were unwilling
to "walk the walk." For me and many of my fellow vets this display
of his hawkish nature in contrast to his avoidance of any real
personal risk in Vietnam, amply displays just what kind of hawk he
is.

To compound this "Bring It On" verbal blunder, he also said early
on that we were on a "Crusade" to destroy Osama and al Quaeda.
Nothing like handing our enemies some ammunition to use against
us among the Islamic zealots that already think we are the "Great
Satan." Great, lets see if we can start a new "holy war" with this
belligerent talk of a crusade.  

So now we find ourselves bogged down in a conflict in Iraq with an
uncertain outcome. We started out looking for Islamic terrorist
scorpions under the rocks in Afghanistan, with the world on our
side. Now we find ourselves almost alone, stuck on a huge red
anthill in Iraq, hoping that the rest of the ants don't swarm out and
overrun our troops.

What a mess Mr. Bush, your mess.

David