I think the gist of your argument requires one or more assumptions I don’t share: that armies are only for killing and that the sum of what the U.S. can do is limited to what President Bush’s cronies can do.

Over the last two or three decades, armies have performed increasingly as police forces. As you know, the United Nations has no standing army so it is the armed forces of countries who perform as “peace-keepers.” U.N. peace-keeping missions have been — recently — cited as much more effective than not.

Second, I don’t think anyone disputes that the current Republican regime in the U.S., from state legislatures to the Congress to the White House is corrupt and, in many way, inefficient to boot. But your argument holds that, for example, the failure of “Brownie’s” FEMA means we shouldn’t expect the U.S. government to be able to respond to domestic natural disasters.

No American would stand for such fatalism. I don’t believe any victims of American misdeeds should either.

Finally, I don’t believe your closing “Red Dawn” scenario is the best match. First, you’ve chosen states that don’t hold regular elections invading a state that does. Second, you omit the fact that elections were held in Iraq and participation was high. (Wether they will do any good is another matter.)

I also share your disdain for the misguided economic policies of the CPA — in fact, of the so-called modern GOP. But, in the greater scheme of things, that is a procedural error. But the U.S. also poured billions of dollars into Iraq — albeit into a corrupt Iraqi infrastructure.

The bigger offense was invading a police state and toppling a dictator without a plan for how to then reconcile the warring factions of that nation. That is, without any clue as to what democracy would look like — or require, in terms of American sacrifices — in Iraq.

Your analogy would require Democrats vs. Republicans, ethnic minority groups and urban ghettoes, corporations and churches (to name just a few) all breaking apart from “civil society” and forming new coalitions with and against the invading Canadian and French armies and resulting “interim state.”

Thanks again for your comments.

But you don’t get that guy on his feet by kicking him until he gets up, which is about all any army is trained and equiped to do. And you don’t pay for his injuries by paying one of your rich friends whom you owe money to perform exploratory surgery.

Look at it the other way around. Imagine that China and North Korea invaded to “liberate” the U.S. from Bush, and proceeded to eliminate all corporate taxes, setup a free-trade zone, blow up your workplace and/or school, and go house-to-house in the dead of night trying to round people up and disappear them into some torture chamber, ostensibly for the purpose trying to root out those who were fighting their occupation. Meanwhile, a smattering of right-wing “militia” types come out of the woodwork and start blowing up black churches, trying to start a race war.

Would your response to the Chinese and North Koreans be “they can’t leave, they have responsibilities”? Or would it be “get the fuck out of my country”?