The first verse should be in italics and set apart as an opening quote or reference. It’s the poem my poor wallflower wrote (yes I wrote it). The rest of it is her unwritten thoughts—a poem written by someone else about her poem and about her.

Welcome back, and keep the flowers, throw out the dates.

Maybe it’s better if he brings a wolf, she’d have something more than dried flowers or a string of ascii characters.

The first verse is hers, the rest is the narrator’s. She’s feeling melancholy and writes cliché; yes, you are right.

I would not have got it from the poem. That's a bad thing. Suggest shaping the image a while longer on the wheel.

Is it because I'm beautiful, provocative conversationalist, lovable humanitarian, or irresistible logician? You decide, and step right in, let your hair down.

I know as much about this war as Bill Bryson knows about topography and the measurement of mountains. I’m reading his Short History of Nearly Everything and chuckle at his depiction of Charles Hutton “inventing contours.” It’s the difference between a good writer of generalities and the subject of a specialist. In the current discussion, I wear a lesser hat than Bill and spout generalities of less accuracy on a complicated issue.

I failed to open my discourse with some implication of Bush as a bloated idiot, and failed again by not pointing out the war’s sordid history. Then I failed to post a poem having metaphor, image, clever wording . . . . Without these openings, any suggestions regarding courses of action in the war fall on ears of ire. Oh, I tingle with the last verse of my ditty, but the first two are just spouting.

My little learning about what I’m calling the Islamic mindset, referring to the common people of Iraq, comes mostly from a Bengali Muslim who thinks America’s greatest failing in Iraq is our resistance to taking their mindset seriously—the old “know your enemy” maxim.

If my uninformed support for technology as our “best hope” raises eyebrows, then my only sacrifice to the cause is a little ridicule. I wish a greater sacrifice for the folks with knowledge and brains—hard work and risk of their jobs. And for the soldiers who are buying them time, I wish fewer losses.

Anybody out there, Q-cleared, with a clue on the whereabouts of Weber’s magic bullets of Der Freischutz, the kind that hit whatever you shoot at, Go for it and forget the bosses! You’re our best hope.

Neither of us know the Islamic mindset. We talk from modernity of which they accept virtually nothing.

I agree that providing these things will make them happier. But if the reports of their committment to Allah are correct, few of them would sacrifice Isalm, as interpreted by whichever cleric they adhere to.

You assume the people in Iraq think beyond their Islamic teachings. I hear they do not. Our worst misjudgement has been that they want freedom, democracy, a better life - when they want the approving glance of Allah, as understood by their clerics.

It makes sense in a Western sort of way. But an upbringing in Islam saw the collapse of a great Infadel, the Soviet Union as a result of their defeat of Russia in Afghanistan. Today, they see America as weak and fearful, the one remainder of a formerly two-infidel world. They have dealt triumphantly with one of them, now it’s the turn of the other. The United States has become degenerate, in their minds, debouched, and easily frightened and defeated. Decadence and decay within America have made it ready to be toppled. Such signs of concilliation might simply reinforce these ingrained beliefs.

Some hospital help has been sent, so I hear on NPR. And some help with road repair. More could be done, but do you really think it would prsuade some cleric gang leader to give in to a rival cleric gang leader?

Humanitarian aid, while it has done in many ways, if done in some huge way, might have helped with our image. I hardly think that's a good reason to do it. The radicals would probably be unphased by such "nonsense."

Call it "police action" as we did in Korea, then. Hopefully, it ends better.

It sounds like you’re saying that because technological/scientific efforts have failed, we should not support them as much as we have. Because they have failed, anyone from the Ranker who suggests those methods might be our best hope is bonkers, is that it? You surely don’t mean that. Some of these people might have in their minds at this moment the seed of a breakthrough, the only good way out of this. It seems we should support them.

If we want to tell them something like, “You win. Lets meet and discuss the terms of our surrender,” it’s simple—just put Bush on television and have him say it. I hope we win this mess and save ourselves the embarrassment and chaos, but at the rate we’re going, who knows.

Technologists just might, for example, develop a super-sniffer to tell us where the bombs are, or where they make them, or how they distribute them. We might learn to track their movements, their meetings, where they sleep, with a badguy-resonance-gizmo. I’m trying to kick technology butt here, and show how much we depend on them.

Ok, kicking butt isn’t the way to do it, you say. Suggest something else then.

I don't think I've ever said this to you, and I know you've never said it to me - I'm sorry.

But defeat is so disasterous that I think we should give it three more years, double our losses if necessary, giving scientific and technological methods a chance. It's a high price, and demands high motivation of capable people.