I didn’t exactly spring from bed this morning to greet what wonderment and discovery the day might hold for me. It was more a slow, painful, joint-creaking, unwilling return to consciousness. A good thing a mischievous poltergeist didn’t come to visit last night, strewing obstacles throughout the rooms. It wasn’t until after I drenched the mind numbing ravages of sleep with a hot shower that I was able to open my eyes enough to see.

Sometime during the night, an evil entity that lives in the depths of the artic dragged in a layer of low-hanging clouds and frigid air. It was twilight when I awoke and, ten hours later, it is still twilight. On the positive side, the evil entity was so overloaded with clouds and frigid air he wasn’t able to bring the wind. It has been tornado-coming still all day – the only thing that makes the frigid air bearable.

Too many days like this, all in a row, could drive a person mad. It is dark enough that you need a light for reading or writing. It isn’t dark enough for a light to provide any meaningful illumination. After a while, the grayness begins to sink into your mind and cognitive thought is crushed by the weight of the miasma of gloom. You are filled with restlessness and a sense of foreboding.

I played endless, usually losing, games of Spider. I read at a Dean Koontz novel. Kat and I visited. I sat on the patio and tried to pretend I was sitting in a warm diner having a cup of coffee with my cigarette. I came in and scanned the news feed.

I was a little amazed when I read that Dr. Henry Kissinger, admittedly a brilliant mind, had been offering President Bush advice about the situation in Iraq. First, I was amazed that Dr. Kissinger was still alive. He has to be getting a little long in the tooth. Second, I remember, back in the day when he was part of the administration, he offered a bit of advice about Vietnam. We all know how well that turned out. It seems to me, if I were the General Manager of a football team that was having some problems, I’d want to be talking to a coach with a winning record. Of course, I don’t know for a fact that Dr. Kissinger gave bad advice. Perhaps he was right on target and the whole affair would have ended much differently had they listened to the man.

During October, our troops took some pretty hard hits. I’ve read some pundits that seem to be of the opinion that our warriors, since they are all volunteers, knew what they were letting themselves in for when they signed up. That one made me shake my head in stunned disbelief. Until you’ve been in combat, been shot at with live rounds and rockets and had bombs explode around you and under you and heard your comrades scream with pain and death, you don’t have a freakin’ idea what you are letting yourself in for.

Information being disseminated by the administration would lead me to believe that almost all of the Iraqis have welcomed us with open arms and want us to be there. It is only a number of foreign terrorists and insurrectionists, jihadists if you will, that want us gone.

The information being disseminated by some of the news services, and a large number of bloggers in the Mid East, would lead me to believe otherwise.

The truth is probably somewhere between the two. The untruths are probably somewhere between the two, also.

I have a few suggestions to make. Offer a little advice, as it were. I don’t expect anyone to listen to me and that’s okay. I wouldn’t listen to me either.

You are not going to win this sort of war with troops. The Russians learned that lesson in Afghanistan and we surely should have learned it in Vietnam. While an army can be defeated, it is nigh onto impossible to defeat an armed and determined citizenry. No invading army has as high of stakes in the pot as does the folks being invaded.

The average Iraqi knows us as an invader. They know we search their homes, detain them, and disrupt their way of life. Whether we have probable cause or just reason to do so isn’t overly relevant. When there is a loss of life as “collateral” damage, they see it as a loved one dying. When we make a bombing run, they see only death and destruction. Would you regard the people that do that as your friend? If you would, then you are one hell of a lot different than I am, neighbor.

When I crossed the border into Canada last summer the Border Guards searched my belongings. There was nothing there for them to find. Even though, in this day and age, you should anticipate being searched, I was outraged. I was even more angry when we crossed back into America and were subjected to a search of our person as well as our belongings – and we all spoke the same language.

I would call in every Army Engineer and Navy Seabee outfit that I could muster and spare. They would be set to work repairing the infrastructure and restoring electricity and water service. Food would be distributed to those that needed it. We would work on getting the schools reopened.

We would continue to train the Iraqi army and police. Our only role, unless attacked, would be to advise and train. It would be up to the army to quell civil war and deal with crime. It is their country. It is their way of life.

Would the jihadists come after us? Possibly they would. Maybe probably they would. The war we would be waging would be one that was winning the hearts of those the jihadists desperately needed for support. If my guess is even close to correct, we would find the Iraqi citizens standing along side our warriors.

Regardless of nationality, race, or religion, all human beings are very similar. Our similarities greatly outweigh our differences. We all want the same thing – to be left alone so we can get along with our lives.