t doesn't feel that way, but according to the respected International Peace Research Institute in Stockholm, wars are on the decline. They claim that the number of active major armed conflicts last year was 17. That, if accurate, would be the lowest total in a trend which reached 31 wars in 1991. In the recent past three on-going wars ended: the conflicts in Algeria, Rwanda and southern Sudan.

I thank "Mother Jones" for revealing that the income gap between Mexico and the United States is the largest of any two contiguous nations. And if you think about it, can you picture any First World country that shares a border with a Third World country...especially a porous 1951 mile one.

Is there a contagion spreading in the middle east? The easy answer is "yes." What we have witnessed for four years in Iraq and for the past four weeks in Lebanon might well be auguring the outset of a war between Arab Sunni states and Shia Iran.

The cost of the warfare in Iraq, we're told, has passed half a trillion dollars already. Yes, Saddam is in jail, but Osama bin Laden is still at large. Iraq begins to look more and more like Afghanistan where we are battling against a resurgent Taliban.

Question for Vice President Dick Cheney, "Mr, Vice President can there be any reasonable doubt that you intentionally distorted any possible threat from Saddam Hussein's Iraq while abusing the power of your office to suppress any information which would take issue with your statements; countervailing information.

Another question for the Vice President because it is as much his war as the Chief Executive's. "Mr.Vice President have you a shred of information or evidence to support your conviction that Saddam and Al Qaeda have been in league in any way?"

The president has proclaimed, with growing frequency of late, that we must "stay the course". What course and how will we know when we have reached the end of the road and are ready to declare victory?

It would appear that there is a sharp increase in sectarian attacks and the daily tally of strikes against both American and Iraqi forces has more than doubled this year.The insurgency has become bloodier and they appear to be more capable in the number of active people and in its ability to call on violence than heretofore.

For the past few months opinion polls have indicated that the Democrats are on course to win back one or possibly both Houses of Congress this November. But, I wonder, even with a president who is hugely unpopular, it may be insufficient to just say the war is a miserable failure to -date ,unless the Democrats can overcome their reluctance to directly challenge and question Mr.Bush's handling of the military offensive in Iraq and the Middle East: Israel retaliating against Hezbollah. The Democrats are finding it frustratingly hard to get leverage and exploit an unpopular president's unpopular war.

There are several ways to assess the warfare and its outcome between Israel and Lebanon, but to be practical, Israel comes out of the conflict with its economy and its state fully intact. They will very soon fully recover. The Lebanese have been set back by a full ten years. Their economy and their democracy lie in ruins. For what? To boost "Arab" honor and so that Iran can distract the world's attention from its nuclear program?

I'd very much like to read your reaction to this thought .

A year ago the White House vision of spreading democracy was flourishing. Today it is just about dead.
Iraq is sinking into civil war.
The Lebanon conflict was the latest testament to a broader unraveling of US policy.