All this makes me wonder if the president of the USA has too much power. That country might be better served by a parliamentary system similar to our own.

Mr. Brash describes the Bush Administration all too accurately! The majority of Americans showed their extreme dislike of the Bush policies by throwing out his (Republican) majority in both the House and the Senate last November. Americans are now disgusted with the new House and Senate because they have not had the guts to do the only thing that will work in ending the conflict in Iraq. Since the purse strings are controlled by the Congress, to stop Bush's madness the Congress has to withhold the funds that support it.

The real number one enemy of the criminals in the United States Government is themselves and their actions of the past.

Why would anyone even consider negotiating with anyone that never gets around to keeping their word on any of the immigration laws of the past?

What would be the point?

This is like the people that got caught by their own rules while playing games as children. Every time they would get caught in one of their old rules they would start in on a big speech for a new rule. They never would pay up on being caught on the old rule.

No one plays with them long.

Just what are we still doing dealing with these liars?

It's just a prerogative, don't you know.

How foolish the English philosopher John Locke proved to be, when after his shadow job of organising the 1688 Glorious Revolution, this time chucking out autocratic next to God royalty forever, he fell for the two-card trick, that it pays to always please all the people, even though in the minority.

But has it paid? Certainly when Willian and Mary were brought over from Holland to watch over a so-called ersatz or symbolic throne, they kept to just pleasantly entertaining and generally presenting themselves well.

Also the first two German George's kept up the act, till the North American settlers decided they wanted to be less controlled from the Old Country and make certain rules that suited themselves.

So what stopped a reasonably peaceful colonial handover, was German Georgie the Third, using his solely symbolic position to take over control - pushed more than a bit by the usual Royalty lovers - and away sailed the troops in the name of George rather than the Parliament.

But it was the colonists - helped a bit by the French - who won independence, the Constitution made up closely following the anti-autocratic policies of John Lock, yet stupidly still allowing the President the ersatz symbolic powers given to William of Holland in 1688.

So we had Georgie Boy Bush out to break the esrsatz code once again, and even stealing a bit of English political history, to write down the ersatz offical order that the third German George gave to send the troops to bring the cheeky colonialists to order.

Looks like we should take a lesson. Let's please keep these 'next to God' freaks where they belong, which also means checking their true personalities before positioning them anywhere near a Peoples' Parliament.

What a crock!

If anything, the current President is too weak. The US is in the unique position of having the world's most powerful military machine, yet does nothing with it.

Imagine if China had that power.

A lot of anti-Americans would change their stupid tune quicksmart. The world view of those on the left is too small, they don't see all the geopolitical realities that force the west to go against it's own values.

Our values are so good not only do all the refugee flows come to the west - which in my opinion gives us a mandate to force our values on the backward third world,

The middle-east in particular needs to be sorted out. They have no free media, their politicians play on the racist sentiment of their vile people - hence the 'Death to America!' chants.

In short, they play race politics non-stop.

The US ought to bomb Iran, Syria, and the financers of Islamic terrorism - Saudi Arabia. All these nations practice apartheid against women and non-Muslims in various forms.

Where are those who protested against South Africa's apartheid? Don't Muslims count? Are they not people too, deserving of freedom of conscience?

Say what you want about Bush, he won't kill you or your family. Why? Because he's a westerner, he follows decent values. He doesn't follow a religion that sees all non-participants as inferiors who should be subjugated.

The Bush administration is weak, Iran should be bombed today. Imagine them with western nuclear capability?!

See, if you leftists don't want us to intefere in the politics of the third world, then let them develop on their own too - without our technology.

Those savages wouldn't even have electricity yet they are so tribal and backward. It is only through the free-thinking superior western world that these things come about.

Time is running out though. There is no way the next President will start a new war. Bush better attack at least those three nations.

At least.

Benjamin - before you advocate a total invasion of three middle eastern nations, perhaps you could:

a) give me one example, just one, of an American occupation such as this, which hasn't had catastrophic consequences.
I'd want to hope there was at least one to go by, before three were attempted on a military that is strained to the point where they are so desperate for soldiers, they accept miliary service in lieu of jail time for some offences.
You said it yourself - the Bush administration is weak.

b) give me some kind of indication as to what the ultimate long-term outcome of such an invasion would be. Is it merely to bomb them more? is there a reconstruction plan? Any kind of attempt to reconcile warring factions?
Will this be an attempt to impose secularism or Christianity on the middle east? How do you honestly think the quarter or so of the world's population that defines itself as Islamic will react?

I can't see what you're trying to achieve. The reason why Iraq has failed so spectacularly, is
a) there was no clear idea of what the US was hoping to achieve, aside from removing non-existent WMDs and
b) there was no long term plan.

So if you're going to invade countries willy nilly, you better have a damn good plan and goals in mind, or you're just going to drag the entire world into a pointless war that will kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions.