'". . . . .and believe nothing of what you hear."

Recent news reports address problems we're having in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. It seems website "WikeLeaks", (based upon 90,000 massive "leaked" documents) advises us and other countries that the Pakistani "spy service" is in cahoots with the bad guys.

This is a little like hearing Lindsay Lohan is back in trouble. Regardless, let's forget the office pools as to how many hours of the 90 day sentence Lohan will complete, and try to spend a few minutes in today's blog on the Pakistan/Afghanistan debacle.

First, how in the name of God do you as a government manage to leak 90,000 records of events and intelligence reports? Makes you sort of fear the privacy of the IRS and the Social Security Administration more than that of Facebook, doesn't it?

Second, realize we continue to treat the diverse cultures of countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan like they are Texas & Oklahoma. Only if we find out the latter two are taping each other's Spring football practices should this be allowed to continue.

The immediate response to the news release from various bloggers was that it's only a handful of folks in Pakistan that have their fingers in the cash drawers. They must be related to "Dr. T. "

Others agree that we do not - never have - and never will understand the philosophy of the inhabitants in each country. They suggest in Afhganistan we learned nothing from Russias'10 year vain attempt at winning there. To those who might doubt their wisdom they have the gall to bring up Vietnam and our won /loss statistics over there.

The government's response to the leak? {"How dare they?}"They made no effort to contact us about these documents", said National Security Adviser James Jones.

You go James - deflection and denial have worked for so many recently.

Now, the "second" disclosure in recent media reporting concerns Mexico. This is the country that has stringent immigration laws - about sneaking into their country - not ours.

Now, Mexico has other problems. Guards and officials at a prison in Northern Mexico allegedly let inmates out, lent them guns and sent them off in official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings. These include the massacre of 17 people last week in a party held in Torreon and 16 other deaths in two bars in the same town.

According to witnesses, the prison inmates were allowed to leave -with the authorization of the prison director - to carry out instructions for revenge attacks using official vehicles and weapons. They then returned to their cells.

Finding that the bullets recovered match casings from 4 assault rifles assigned to the prison ,the Mexican authorities took immediate action. The director of the prison and three other officials were placed under a form of house arrest - pending further investigation.

Now, as a overlay to this story it was mentioned that the Mexican authorities allegedly have a 2% conviction rate resulting in prison sentences. It's hard to understand why the miscreants would object to a little jail time - which apparently includes take-out privileges.

Here's this writer's problem . Before doing my Jonathan Swift thing I need to make it clear as to my conviction that untoward death by any means, including friendly fire, is a chilling thought.

While remaining a patriot, my heart goes out to the victims, family, and friends of any and all who have lost their lives as a result of the two wars in which we have recently been involved. My sympathies also lie with the many, many innocent victims in the two aforementioned occupied countries, plus those in Mexico who have suffered as the result of drug gang violence.

Having said this, what comes next requires a little suspension of disbelief.

The wars in which we are involved overseas have cost many lives and a tremendous amount of money that would be better spent elsewhere. We have a worse "on the road" record than the Pittsburgh Pirates.

We appear to have learned nothing from our past mistakes and are painfully unaware that we do not travel well to distant destinations. Still, we need to acknowledge that our "war room" fanatics become almost anti-social when they do not have a war to fight.

We're recommending that the sane solution is to confine our battles to places closer to home until we are confident we understand not only the culture but the terrain. Our best option appears to be: call it a "tie game'' overseas, pull out our troops, and deploy them to Mexico

Think about it. We could still keep the killing machine up to snuff & address the immigration issue. Why not employ the intelligence of the illegal immigrants currently residing with us to assist us in strategizing a victory against the drug lords based upon their personal knowledge of the country and it's culture.They could become our paid advisors without all that nasty Halliburton stuff.

Our troop's families would also benefit. Loving parents who are rightfully concerned about the welfare of their service members could follow this "New war against drugs" on local TV channels who are shooting actual footage of the developing war.

Tollhouse cookies could be sent down to Mexico through open border gates with little concern over spoilage. Needed conjugal visits could be arranged and thus reduce the divorce rates and the number of "Dear John" letters.

Children's refrigerator drawings would not have to suffer delivery problems at the hands of our inept postal service. UPS could drop them off as they pass through Tijuana.

Arizona tourism would once again thrive now the folks in the rest of the country who have family members involved in the fight finally understand just how close Arizona is to Mexico.

Prescient travel promoters would be quick to arrange packages to visit Cancun and throw in side trips to include battle viewing posts in the more elevated cities. Beats those pesky hills in Gettysburg for the folks in the 1800's.

Troop R & R could become a cottage industry and much more pleasureable than our troops spending their days off watching native kids play soccer with heaven knows what for a ball.

Re-enlistment quotas will be a snap. We'll continue our history of post-war occupation advisors for the next 20 years. Our militia prone folks will be reuping for nothing more than a sombrero, a spanish-english dictionary, two gun belts, a white suit and a case of Corona.

The drug trade routes into our country are costing us one heckuva lot of money not to mention editorial ink. There are many benefits to fighting in Mexico vs places we can't even pronounce. We understand this culture. We watched Dezi Arnaz and The Cisco Kid.
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The new strategy of the Mexican drug lords to use car bombs and IED's against the Mexican police would be putty in the hands of our drone coordinators - Been there - done that!

Generals could hail a flight on Southwest at noon - incur no baggage fees- and still be in Washington in time to attend the lobbyists cocktail parties on K-street that evening.

We should be in and out of Mexico in 6 months tops according to one ex-Bush official. If McCain re-enlists, we "cut" that to 8 months
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What immigration problem? We win the war - rebuild the country using Mexican laborers - annex the country - give the police force GI benefits- get rid of those expensive border gates and guards and we're all one happy family. Those former immigrants who chose to could work in Arizona during the week and take a bus home to their loved ones on the weekend. It's a "win/win!" The Lakers , Mavericks, Suns, & Clippers would play exhibition games in Juarez.

There could be a downside, but, if the hawks and defense contractors are upset over the short military involvement, they could now invade Venezuela using the lessons learned from a hispanic culture. They would make mincemeat out of Chavez and his threat to cut off our 35% oil dependency if we don't stop working with Columbia.It's a great country for rebuilding purposes.

Pakistan could resume fighting India instead of us and Afghanistan could go back to growing poppies more efficiently using the agricultural skills we taught them.

Reasonable solution ? Of course not! But, maybe a victory for Lilliputian logic.

Is what we're doing now making any more sense? How long are you willing to allow egomaniacal politicians, nutso military leaders and avaricious defense contractors steal your tax money & give a billion dollars to Pakistan while your kids can't get a decent lunch in their school cafeteria?

One caveat: don't forget the title of this blog.