watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.......

So here we are at the third anniversary of a war nobody wants. While our current government ponders the quest of how we are going to get out of this mess, daily terrorist acts continue to dominate our news, and many innocent people become the pawns in this quandry. What a world, what a world.....

It's not like we can just pull out, although that seems like the easy answer. Our President had a hard enough time convincing the countries of the world that this was the right course, and he's not about to back out now. While he continues to blow out his relighting candles on the birthday cake of this anniversary, in our hindsight, we realize that all tactics have changed. What looked good on paper in the "war room" is not being played out according to the blueprints that "convinced" us we were being noble to bring democracy to an area that "needed us". The Middle East is no happier that we are there invading their lands than we are about being there. But being true to their course, and we to ours, there seems to be no magical moment where everybody just puts their guns down and walks away. It further seems that we have far surpassed the point where there will be an understanding reached by both sides... and evidence to that is the continuing terrorist acts held in random soft spots around the world, and mostly in Iraq itself.

They are convinced that we are the infidels, and ingrained thinking on their part means that we will have many more years ahead of us; second and third generations who feel the need to press on in the absence of the leaders who started this course. If bin Laden were to be captured today, it still wouldn't stop, as his beliefs are too grounded into the minds of his followers. Proof of that is the capture of Saddam Hussain. Perhaps we feel that a bad leader was taken out, but Iraq is still a hot-bed of hatred, that has esculated into a civil war... and not brought peace to the area as we had hoped. His followers still proceed to conduct unnatural acts against their own people, or anyone else who has befriended or helped the United States. In many cases, it is the innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, just going about their day in the marketplace, that become victims of car bombs.

We are not fighting on the same terms our forefathers fought in World War I or II, where there was a defined enemy in a defined country. It was clear that if you were defeated, a great ceremony was conducted, treaties were signed, and life went on. We even returned back to build up these countries that were, for the most part, reduced to rubble. Somehow, the world no longer revolves around that theory. Now the "terrorists" are all over, and the quest is that we stop terrorism in order for our future generation to live in a world of peace between Christians and Muslums. This is a tall order to fill, and we seem to be lacking the blueprints that is able to pull this miracle off. Too many lines have been blurred and too much hatred has developed in order to help to unite over common causes.

What some see as a eventual need for the world to behave in a civilized manner in order to combat environmental problems that plague us, others see as the holy grail of unifying the world into one religion that answers to no one but Allah... everything else be damned. After all, it is Allah's will if the world were to end tomorrow. It has caused the worst rift for both sides.... both feeling their cause is better than the other. In the meantime, the people between the causes suffer greatly, and the world continues on with all sides firmly sticking to their ground. What is amazing about this is that we will all continue to lose ground, if we do not come together to save the very ground we are standing on.

So, what to do? Well, we could bomb the crap out of them, but that doesn't look too good in the annals of history. It may stop the problem now, or at least slow it down a bit, but probably not.
Besides, we have to remember that everything is not confined to just one country anyway. So like Bullwinkle, we would end up pulling a growling rhino out of the hat instead of a rabbit. This is not good. How about becoming less dependant on the resources of the Middle East so we no longer need their oil.... then slap them with embargos as we did Cuba. Well, that would probably collapse their economy, but it's not likely that it would stop the terrorists, as they have their own agendas anyway. It seems that we have stepped on a tightrope that feels more like a double-edged sword.

There are no easy answers.... and this situation will continue on into another Presidency. After all, there are no "off" switches currently available to shut down this mess that started on 9/11. We were asleep at the wheel then, and continue to nap along when it comes to protecting our own shores. Any laws and rules we put in place, have continually been pushed aside while we try to be politically correct in the eyes of the world. One does not have to look far to see that our current government is only using their elected status as a positioning tool for the next election. Ask any one of them how they would pull a rabbit out of their hat, and don't be too surprised if the rhino resurfaces again. As Bullwinkle would say: "oooops, wrong hat!" We are in for the long haul, folks........ and no magician is in sight. Try to explain that to our children.