Before I get too far along, allow me to inform you all that I have learned after much research on television and regional and national newspapers that there is, in fact, a war going on.

Well, it's not really a war any more, since the president says it's over with. But there is war-like activity happening in a desert nation on the other side of the globe.

Tell your friends and neighbors, in case they haven't heard. People are dying, our fine men and women are making this country proud and Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Houdini, has vanished. I am betting he is on that same space ship that picked up Elvis and that Osama Bin Hidin' fellow.

In Jordan, Saddam's daughters are taking refuge, telling what a wonderful fellow dear old dad, who had their husbands shot, happens to be. Really, other than that, he was a fine fellow, they say. No matter, I can tell from what little knowledge of Iraq that I have that he is not a very modest guy. The country was covered with his images, statues, reliefs and posters. It reminds me of the Russian subways, which feature reliefs of Lenin.

In retrospect, Saddam may have helped tear down those posters and statues of himself in the hopes that everyone in the country might forget what he looks like, but I doubt it.

One thing's for sure, we may not know where he is, but every household in Tikrit might as well leave their door standing open until we find him. I say we may be looking in the wrong places. I wonder if we checked the airport lately. Perhaps he is now wearing a peach-colored sheet and hanging out there selling flowers and playing the tambourine. I see a lot of those types with their head shaved, when I travel. It would probably be hard to recognize him that way.

All I know for sure is that he is no longer in power and that we now have a big mess of trying to sort out law and order in a country that no one really cared all that much about to start with.

In watching the evening news on these folks shooting at us and each other and destroying their own country, it makes me miss the Soviet Union. What happened to the good old days of us (U.S. in this case) versus them? We don't even have the Chinese to hate any more. Now we trade with communist China, even bestowing 'favored nation' status on them. In my opinion, that's the real war we need to fight. Foreign nations are attacking our country and causing many casualties, without ever firing a shot. In particular, the Chinese have attacked our nation economically, attempting to swamp our market with imports while simultaneously increasing the value of our currency so their goods are cheaper for American consumers.

You know, my father fought the Chinese in Korea, spending the last three years of the war captured and starving in a ramshackle school turned prison camp along the border between North Korea and China. I don't particularly like the idea of my country supporting the Chinese or their economy for any reason, but I especially have a problem with our government allowing them to sabotage our nation, especially us here in the south, by dumping cheap textiles and furniture in the United States and causing our factories to go out of business. They don't have the environmental controls, minimum wage requirements or free market economy that we have. With slave labor and state run and supported business, it is unfair to make our private businesses compete. Our industries aren't competing with another business on a level playing field, they're competing with an entire nation.

My father found it hard to believe that our fine nation would trade with "Red China," as he calls them. "We trade with Taiwan," he told me. "We wouldn't trade with Red China." I had to show him some news articles to prove it.

Much of our lower-priced merchandise comes, in part, in parts or in whole, from mainland China.

I feel sure the Chinese are using whatever profit they make from their state-owned wares to build up an even more awesome military for us to face in the future. In my opinion, it is likely just a matter of time before they decide to expand their territory once again.

Who's next? I read a recent report citing the fact that the Chinese are building up a stockpile of ballistic missiles to use against us and Taiwan in the future. They also have nuclear weapons - our secret plans for which are one of the few things we have actually exported to China. That being the case, I think we would be much better off to isolate them, leaving the trading arrangements to the Russians and other nations in need of having their markets ruined. Let other countries enjoy the junk ceramics, plastic ash trays, poorly-cast steel tools, rickety furniture and second-class textiles.

I would much prefer to have all the prices on these and other items quadruple if the jobs could stay here in the United States where they belong. Americans might actually buy things again if they had jobs. It really doesn't bother me that workers are coming here from other countries. If given the choice of the importation of workers or the exportation of jobs, which is the situation any American, other than our politicians, would choose?

I can't understand why this nation doesn't take any and all possible measures to halt the trade actions of foreign nations that threaten our jobs. It is so lucrative to operate in China and Latin America, even our own companies have moved there to set up shop, hire foreign workers and then import their goods. We better fix this ourselves, because I haven't seen any foreign nations offering help to America's economic war refugees.

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