Cluttered with words

Today, Austin Bay a distinguished and informed former army officer asks us to engage in "A Forward Strategy."

Bay points out the difficulty President Bush has in sustaining America's waivering and seemingly weakening resolve, so Bush draws upon the closest historical analogy available: the Cold War. All readily admit the weakness of the comparison. Yet we hear, "It's like this, but it's not."

Using our dear colonel as a foil, we find Bay and others, great and small, comparing and contrasting, like freshmen college english students.

When we hear "Islamo-fascism" our eyes glaze over, for we do not know what that means. In a nation that struggles with simple definitions ("It depends on what your definition of is is."), we cannot understand "proactive" diplomacy, for many believe it is a facial cream which explains why Vanessa Williams is so drop-dead gorgeous.

Bay is talking to himself. Bay wades into Heraclitus' stream, struggling against the cascading time that surges about, believing once he crosses into the Land of Reason, his balking companions will join him.

As a learned military man, Bay must recognize the shallowness of his reason to achieve his noble end. David Hume taught us, reason gives rise to no action (A Treatise of Human Nature). War is action.

Bay will be left slogging homeward alone, chilled in his drenched toga, shall he continue to reason a case for war.