Curse you, Red Baron

In late breaking news...

Last World War I flying ace dies quietly at 106

THE only surviving pilot from the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War has died at the age of 106.

Flying ace Hubert Williams was the last of a breed of pilots who risked their lives every time they flew their biplanes into combat. They were in danger both from the enemy and from the flimsiness of their own aircraft.

Great-great grandfather Hubert died quietly in a Cardiff nursing home 84 years after his last mission over enemy lines.

Hurry, hurry, hurry

Will Congress Rubber-Stamp an Unpopular War?

Key to the War Party's aims is that Congress and the UN pass resolutions quickly, before anyone has time to realize what's going on. Hurry, hurry, hurry. As Colin Powell was hurrying out of the hearing room, he was surrounded by half a dozen secret service agents, and even as he smiled at the crowds that were slowly rising and moving toward the aisle like zombies in Night of the Living Dead, I could see something unmistakable in his eyes: fear. The popular chief diplomat of a popular government in a democratic country was reaching forward to put his arm on the shoulder of one of the secret service officers to let him know he was right behind him and they could proceed out, away from the rabble. "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" one of the agents was saying to his colleagues. After all, it wasn't just al-Qaeda that might want to get Gen. Powell. It might be some of these... "people." Got to move fast. Got to make a quick exit and get into that armored limousine. What a popular guy.

It is now clear - and not just from Cynthia McKinney's very credible charges about a "secret plan" of two years ago - that the plan to invade Iraq has been brewing in the mind of our boy president since long before he came to office. It's now easy to imagine the boy president-to-be nursing his desire all those years to avenge the Iraqi assassination attempt (alleged by the Clinton administration) on his father in 1993, and to take care of his dad's "unfinished business" from the Gulf War of 1991. Like a child playing with toy soldiers, tanks and airplanes, George Jr. envisions ridding the world of this "evil man" and turning Baghdad into Houston, while the unremarkable Stalinist dictator Saddam Hussein attracts opinion on the Arab street to his side and against America's corrupt Gulf client regimes, setting the region ablaze politically and otherwise with minimal effort. By next week we should have the Congressional stamp of approval on a war very few Americans really want, and which - if it doesn't prove to be chicken-hawk Ken Adelman's "cakewalk" - could see bodies coming home in boxes. This is what we have to look forward to until Vietnam-sized demonstrations materialize in the streets of Washington.

Ask the Questions

Bush's war plans are a cover-up, Byrd says

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., said President Bush's plans to invade Iraq are a conscious effort to distract public attention from growing problems at home.

"This administration, all of a sudden, wants to go to war with Iraq," Byrd said. "The [political] polls are dropping, the domestic situation has problems.... So all of a sudden we have this war talk, war fervor, the bugles of war, drums of war, clouds of war.

"Don't tell me that things suddenly went wrong. Back in August, the president had no plans.... Then all of a sudden this country is going to war," Byrd told the Senate on Friday.

To the poor, bloody infantry

Whenever I perform Hold The Line, I make it a point to remind people that it is dedicated to the poor, bloody infantry, the ones who, in every war - in any war - take the brunt of the fighting.

Many people have responded positively to the song and e-mailed me about it, most having downloaded it from the site. To my mind, however the highest and most moving compliments are the ones that come from soldiers, both serving and former.

Thanks for letting me know I got it right, guys.