by Werther*

As the administration's Iraq "policy" careens out of control like a car stolen by joy-riding teenagers, critics are confronted with the inevitable retort: "But what would you do? Be constructive!" In truth, this rejoinder is a red herring: people who had no role in creating this mess have no moral "responsibility" for solving it; the authors of the mess have. And to the extent one accepts responsibility for rescuing the situation, one implicitly believes that one actually has a role in governing this erstwhile republic. In reality, the neo-con-artists, Big Oil plutocrats, and "defense" contractors will not release their iron grip on U.S. foreign policy until their avaricious hearts cease to beat.

But in the constructive spirit of Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal," we herewith offer a few eminently constructive suggestions: