As we say constantly, strategy teaches how to develop strategic positions that others cannot attack and that can be advanced easily over time. Strategic positions are not built from number of supporters (political polls) or money, but from the five factors Sun Tzu explains in The Art of War. Popularity and money come from good strategic positions, but money and popularity cannot by themselves create good strategic positions.

As I have pointed out before, war saves lives. Tyrants kill far more people through abusing civilian populations than war does. This is being shown by the atrocities today in Sudan. "Only" 50,000 have died so far, but currently 1.5 million people in the black region of Sudan called Darfur have been herded into camps after beings displaced from the land by the Arabs who control the government.

I notice a recent trend in the state of Washington. Patty Murray, one of our U.S. Senators, is running commercials touting how devoted she is to supporting our veteran's and her support for the war on terror. This is interesting given that Senator Murray is a Democrat and most Democrats in Washington state are largely anti-war. Does this mean that Ms. Murray is at odds with much of her constituency and her own past history?

The new TNT show, The Grid, makes a point of humanizing terrorists and being more accepting of "different" lifestyles. But Sun Tzu teaches that all war is about philosophy. A nation that doesn't believe that its philosophy is better and can't convince others that its philosophy is better, will always lose the war. In promoting the idea that all philosophies are equal, television is doing its part to end Western civilization, the philosophy that created television.

Reading today's post on the pro-Kerry blog, the Daily Howler, Bob Somerby, the author, shows a common misunderstanding how our strategic position determines the meaning and importance of our words or, at least, how they are interpreted by others. The author criticizes Cheney for taking John Kerry's statement about fighting a "more sensitive war" out of context and accuses Cheney himself of using the words "sensitive" in describing how we must handle al Sadr's occupation of the Ali Mosque in Najaf.