But, this is besides the point.  The war drums are beating again.  Now that the Afghani campaign is winding down, President George W. Bush seeks to restage a war against Iraq, a conflict left undone by his father, President George H. W. Bush.

A new war with Iraq is a gross mistake.  The community of nations is voicing its disapproval of such an act, and it is likely that the United States would have to take unilateral action, perhaps with Great Britain's support, to attack Iraq.

Why is George Jr. considering a new war at all?  Yes, we were attacked.  For nearly nine months, the United States has retaliated against an enemy, Al Qaida, that is as illusive as a firefly in a thunderstorm.  What the President seeks to do by invading Iraq is to legitimize the vast sums of money being spent on defense.

President Bush ought to carefully consider that although his father was successful in expelling the Iraqi army from Kuwait, his father's seeming indifference to the 1991 recession cost him reelection in 1992 to Bill Clinton.  The son is sliding down the same slope as the father.

The China Syndrome is playing out in the capital markets.  The NASDAQ has already fallen so precipitously that it mirrors the action of the 1929 stock market crash.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average is slipping fast.  If the credit markets collapse, there is little the Federal Reserve can do to prop them up as the discount rate is already at a uniquely low level of 1.25 percent. ^2/  For guidance here, we look at Japan, as this country has been in economic malaise since 1990 when the bubble in the Japanese stock market burst.  The current Bank of Japan discount rate is 0.10 percent.

Economists have led us to believe that the American economy was resilient to the Japanese paradigm, since our system did not rest on inflated asset values.  In Japan, the phony balance sheets of banks rested on inflated equity and real estate values.   We now know, given the likes of Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Qwest, Tyco, and Merck, that American businesses have contorted their balanced sheets to reflect non-existent earnings.  The result of these corporate disclosures is that the world is pulling money out of the American market, fearing a collapse then stagnation akin to what happened in Japan.

The financial crisis that has struck the United States is as serious a threat to our democracy as the terrorist actions of Osama Bin Laden.  The financial crisis demands that we reduce our expenditures overseas.

President Bush has failed to show that a new war with Iraq is in our national interest.  Instead, what rings from the Capitol Dome is that the premise for a new war with Iraq comes not from the heartland of America but from the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem.  The United States supports Israel, which increasingly acts like a thug waging a ghetto war of attrition against Palestinian freedom fighters.  It is time for Israel to remove its settlers from the West Bank and cede back to the Palestinians the land it illegally appropriated.  This would remove the cause for any further involvement of the United States in Middle Eastern affairs.

Whether Osama Bin Laden has been killed or not, we have accomplished our goals in Afghanistan.  There is no reason to leave our men in the Middle East to fight a reckless war against Iraq.  It is time to bring the boys home.

Footnotes

1/ Even during wartime, New Yorkers take a proprietary interest in the affairs of the nation, whether it be redevelopment of a national historic site, or the destruction of the financial markets through their nefarious activities.  There is disagreement as to what to erect at the former site of the World Trade Center.  The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is determined to replace the office space it has lost.  The public wants an appropriate memorial.  The wrangling will continue until the weight of public opinion causes the Port Authority to cave-in.

2/ The Federal Reserve lists monthly historical data for discount window borrowing (the rate at which banks borrow money from the Fed) as far back as January 1950.  The rate at that time was 1.5 percent.  Today's current rate is the lowest in at least 52 years.