But it wasn't. Reagan said we were at war again, this time with DRUGS. Boo hiss! And because of this war certain civil liberties (like privacy) had to be curtailed. Mind you, this war was pervasive, nebulous, and with no end plan. It was an ongoing war. We sank billions of dollars in this war. Remember "Just say no!"? And as far as I know this war is still on.

But the war on drugs had a problem. It wasn't sexy. There wasn't a Big Evil to point to.

Then came bin Laden and the War on Terrorism. The Big Evil but Bush let him slip away into the hills of Afghanistan because Bush wanted Hussein to be the Big Evil. And certainly Hussein was a Big Evil but the reasons for taking him on and out weren't quite, shall we say, legitimate.

So now we have two vague, neverending wars: Drugs and Terrorism.

Neither of which is sexy. No, America is best when it has a Big Evil that it can point to on a map. And we have one - a Big Evil that we're cultivating and holding in the sidelines to when the people stop caring about the War on Terrorism, which was about a year ago.

No, it's not North Korea or Iran. It's China. Yep, they will be our next Big Evil. They will atack us economically, technologically, and finally militarily. Frankly, there may not be much we can do about it. But it will serve if anything to show the world that the U.S. is like any other country: open and vulnerable, and that it's better to work with other countries than to systematically alienate them. Bush did our country a great disservice but acting like the Big Bubba, Big American Tough Guy who does things His Way and the rest of the World be damned.

Don't believe me? Better brush up on your Chinese.