"If men as individuals surrender to the call of their elementary instincts,  avoiding pain and seeking
  satisfaction only for their own selves, the  result  for them all taken together must be a state of insecurity,
  of fear,  and of  promiscuous misery."
     - Albert Einstein

 Turn on the television and find a news station, and you will be greeted
 within seconds by a graphic, and by suitably dramatic music, that tells us
 we are engaged in America's New War.  You will be reminded that we were
 attacked out of nowhere by entities that hate our freedom.  You will be
 counseled to understand that everything has changed.

 In his recent prime time press conference, George W. Bush took the long
 walk, a la Reagan, down the red-carpeted hallway to the East Room of the
 White House and answered about twelve questions.  In one response, he
 professed amazement at the hatred our new enemies hold for us.  We're so
  good, he claimed.  How could they miss that?

 The answer to that question embarrasses all the networks that tell us we are involved
 in a 'new' war, and should embarrass a President whose oft-repeated disdain for
 reading has left him with little historical understanding for  our current circumstances.

 For you see, this is not a new war at all, nor is it a new world, nor has everything changed.

 This is a very old war that has been raging for decades.  There are nations,
 some of whom are apparently complicit in the 9/11 attacks, who believe
 that  they have been at war with the United States for twenty years.  The
 destruction of the Trade Towers and a section of the Pentagon was not
 a lightning-strike from a blameless sky.  It was a bold tactical stroke
 by an enemy that has, for the first time, managed to strike back.

 This is not a new world, and nothing has changed.  America has been rudely
 and horrifyingly awakened to the circumstances of the world around them.

 The cushion provided by two oceans, 2,000 nuclear missiles, and a media
 establishment that quails from reporting what is actually happening
 elsewhere because of our policies, has been ripped from under us.

 Welcome to the world, America.  This is what life is like for many, many nations.

 Now that we are here, at last aware of the war that we have been waging
 for a generation, we must analyze our reaction and decide if the course
 we have set is just, proper, worthy of the lives of our servicepeople, and
 above all, winnable.

 As it stands today, I am against this war.

 I am against this war because it is being fought in exactly the wrong way.
 Pursued as it is, we will soon find ourselves facing a united Muslim world
 that has a long laundry list of grievances against us to begin with.
 A united Pan-Islamic Front is precisely what bin Laden wants, and by
 strafing the rubble in Afghanistan, we are skipping gaily into his arms.

 The more civilians we kill, the stronger and more sympathetic we make bin
 Laden to a poor and enraged Muslim world. Continue to support this bombing
 campaign and you are feeding the fires that will burn us all out of house  and home.

 I am against this war because the millions of Afghan civilians who escape
 the bombs can look forward to unknown amounts of time eating grass and
 drinking poisoned water in deathtrap refugee camps. We dropped 37,000
 meals on Afghanistan when the bombing started, which leaves, by my math,
 6,963,000 people who need to eat.

 There is dying, and there is dying. Among those who flee will undoubtedly be
 thousands who listen to clerical rhetoric against America and decide,
 in their despair, that strapping Semtex to their chests and boarding a plane is
 preferable to a squalid death far from home at the hands of an unseen
 bomb-dropping enemy.

 Better to die on you feet than live on your knees, right? I would bet the
 farm that many of those now fleeing our bombs will come to decide the same
 thing. Again, we put the barrel of the gun to our own heads.

 The head of the largest Islamic group in Pakistan has called for the
 overthrow of that government.  If Pakistan falls, as it may well do, the
 fundamentalists will have nuclear weapons.  On that road lies total
 annihilation.   India, China and Russia will immediately go 'red-alert' if
 Pakistan falls. If just one bomb goes off over there, all of our Cold War
 night sweats will become a reality.

 Besides, who says those Pakistan-based fundamentalists can't cart one
 of those bombs over here, should they get their hands on them?

 I am against this war because Afghanistan is a convenient target whose
 ultimate destruction will do little to win 'The War On Terrorism.'
 bin Laden will survive and flee, and the thousands of Al Qaeda terrorists in
 places like Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Germany, Ireland, Boston, Chicago,
 Cleveland and Los Angeles will be totally unharmed.

 Afghanistan is a straw man. Yes, they are repressive. Yes, they treat women
 unspeakably. They did so on September 10th, and I heard no one advocate
 the limitless bombing of that country on that day or any day before it.

 I have heard in several forums the comparison of bin Laden and the Taliban
 to Hitler and the Nazis. That is a joke. bin laden has no mechanized army to
 roll on Poland or France, nor does he have a Navy to close sea lanes,
 nor does he have an air force, nor even a nation.  The Taliban are not a
 government.  They are a gang.

 This is a war between two rich power-brokers - Bush and bin Laden -
 that is gambling with all of our lives. bin Laden is no Hitler. He is a
 lunatic who kills us with weapons and training we provided him.

 In that, he is like Saddam Hussein, another lunatic who kills people with
 weapons and training we provided him. Also like bin Laden, Hussein was
 compared to Hitler by Bush Sr.. The comparison did not, and does not,
 hold water. It did, however, manage to get us all whipped up as we are now.
 Waving the bloody shirt of Hitler is exactly what Bush wants you to do,
 because it obscures clear and critical thinking. Being afraid right now
 is understandable, but lashing out with that fear and destabilizing the
 planet is stupid and suicidal.

 If we continue to lash out, if we continue to bomb the nothing that is
 Afghanistan, bin Laden can fulfill his Pan-Islamic dreams.  He will unite
 the Muslim world against us, and will then have the capability to become
 Hitler. He's not there yet, but is helped on his way with such inflammatory
 and inaccurate comparisons.

 Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has described this conflict as a 'new Cold War.'
 That war lasted from Truman to Bush Sr., and the circumstances we are
 currently enduring are a direct result. I refuse to even consider supporting
 something that will create a new 45-year war.

 The old Cold War gave us nuclear weapons in all corners of the globe, Korea,
 Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Iraq, the Gulf War, the Red Scare,
 the Black Lists, McCarthy, Hoover, anthrax weapons, smallpox weapons,
 Star Wars, massive ecological destruction, and yes, Osama bin Laden
 and the Taliban.

 The ultimate fallacy behind the idea that this is a new war lies in the fact
 that we are fighting it in a very old-fashioned way.  Bombing a defenseless
 nation will not stop terrorism.  It will not allay the fears of our populace,
 who are bombarded daily with reports of anthrax infections.

 All the bombing of Afghanistan will do is create new jihad warriors who
 are ready to die so as to see you die.  In their rage and despair, they will
 sign up willingly.  Our so-called endless war will become a reality, as we
 manufacture droves of the very people we seek to destroy.  It will never end.

 Let us speak of new solutions for this old war:

 1. Immediately recognize a Palestinian State, and pull out all the stops to
 broker a peace deal. Beat Arafat and Sharon about the head and shoulders
  until they come to an agreement that will stop the unspeakable suffering
 of  the Palestinian people while ensuring the safety and security of Israel.

 Make Jerusalem a UN Protectorate guarded by Swiss troops, or some equally
 uninvolved nation. This is no longer an eternally nagging problem. It is the
 lynchpin upon which peace or total destruction will turn.

 2. Take the billions of dollars we are currently spending to destroy rubble
 and mud in Afghanistan and turn it into food, medicine, radios, propaganda,
 clothing, seeds. If we can read Mullah Abdul bin Tallal bin Alla bin
 Mustafa's watch as he rides his camel through the Kaybher pass with
 our satellites, we can feed and clothe these people, because we are clever.
 Who says a Marshall Plan has to come after a war? With a concentrated effort,
 all the Taliban warriors in Afghanistan won't be able to stop it.
 They will  fall.

 3. Continue what had been shaping up to be an excellent diplomatic course.
 Cut off terrorist funding. Organize the coalition to marshal every iota of
 intelligence ability to tracking, arresting and convicting terrorists in
 every corner of the globe. Before we started bombing, we had massive
 cooperation. That may evaporate in a cloud of outrage soon, and the
 aforementioned safe terrorists will not have the combined might of the
 international community looking for them anymore.

 4. Stop bombing Afghanistan.  Hundreds of civilians have been killed already
 by errant munitions.  We have already created more terrorists.  Stop the
 bombing and stop this genesis.  We've got Special Forces in Afghanistan
 right now lazing 'targets', i.e. mudpiles and rubble. Reconstitute their
 mission to search-and-destroy mode. Shoot these Al Qaeda fighters between
 the eyes from 1,000 yards out...you know we can do it.

 These actions will strip bin Laden and the Taliban of their most potent
 weapon - the ability to generate outrage in the Muslim world. If we are not
 bombing cities, if we are actively seeking peace between Palestine and
 Israel, if we are lobbing tons of food and supplies at Afghan civilians,
 nothing bin Laden can say or do will be able to deflect the obvious fact
 that America is not being belligerent to yet another Muslim country. His
 ranting will make him and his friends more and more isolated, and a well-fed
 Afghan populace with the Northern Alliance hot on their heels will make
 some good changes.

 There are problems which require cures on the home front, as well:

 1.  Restore Congressional oversight to its full Constitutional stature.
 Bush has sworn to limit the flow of data to Congress.  This must not stand.
 Harry Truman investigated America's conduct of World War II while a Senator,
 and Congress investigated several facets of the Vietnam War.  Both actions
 helped America in its actions.  We can not lose this essential aspect of our
 government in the rush to battle.

 2.  The Republican Party must immediately cease its attempts to pass
 partisan legislation under the guise of military necessity.  The war will
 not be helped by tax cuts, nor will it be helped by drilling for oil in the
 Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, nor will it be helped by a ceaseless
 barrage of denunciations aimed at President Clinton.  If this does
 not cease, our much ballyhooed unity will fall to dust, and rightly so.

 3.  Immediately begin Congressional investigations into the spectacular
 failures by the FBI, CIA, NSA and the security sections of the national
 airlines that allowed this travesty to take place with nary a word of  warning.

 4.  A complete analysis of our international policies over the last fifty
 years must be immediately undertaken.  We must determine where our own
 actions have helped bring this old war to our shores.  From our toppling of
 the Iranian government, to Palestine, to Lebanon, to the sanctions on Iraq,
 our policies have left many large and damaging footprints.  Before we can
 get to how we will win, we must first undertake to fully understand why it
 all happened.  Simply being amazed at the hatred of our enemies is not
 enough, and does scant justice to the American lives that have been lost.

 There is one last truth we all have to face when considering this war:

 Absolutely, positively nothing we can say or do will completely end the
 threat of terrorism in this country.

 Nothing.

 It's here, friends. For 225 years we were protected by those two oceans and
 2,000 nuclear missiles. Those days are gone. We were protected and isolated
 from our policies, our wars, our mistakes and our evils. Not anymore.

 We did not deserve the attack we have absorbed, but neither did those whom
 we have attacked, or helped others to attack. Nobody deserves it, but it has
 done by us and in our name for generations. The Bible says that he who
 troubles his own house shall inherit the wind.  We have troubled this house
 for a long time, and that wind has begun to blow hard and strong.

 9/11 was merely an upping of an ante that has been bid upon for years.
 Super-terrorism did not come from nowhere. It is a step on the ladder to
  hell, a ladder we did much to place.

 Finally, the time has come to ask the really hard question:

 If we cannot stop terror without becoming a barricaded, isolated,
 totalitarian state - a dark choice that is the only sure cure - then what is  left?
 More bombs far away? More civilian death? More feeding of the cycle
 that will surely bring more of the same to our shores and theirs?

 Or a long, slow, tortured path towards some kind of redemption?

 There is no way to win this old war if we fight it the way we have been for
 the past several days.  The only way to guarantee victory is to transform  the
 conflict into a genuine New War, one that looks inward as well as outward.

 If we can come up with solutions that do not involve the bombing of civilians
 and the creation of new terrorists, we will win.  If we can bring the criminals who
 attacked us to justice without such tactics, we will win.   If we can foster genuine
 peace in that tortured region, we will win.  If we can come to understand the
 desperation and rage that is aimed at us and change that reality, we will win.
 If we can maintain democracy in our own  country, we will win.

 I'd like to think we can win this new war.  To do so, we must discard the
 old one, and the old ways in which we fight it.