A side note: in June 2005, Chile completed the overhaul of its criminal justice system to a new, US-style adversarial system.

Unfortunately, our great might has been declawed since those days and this has resulted in an even more dangerous world than we had during the Cold War. In better times we would have removed that idiot and anti-capitalist Hugo Chavez who, despite billions in oil revenues, is quickly bringing his country to the brink of economic ruin. Without oil revenues, Hugo's anti-business policies would have destroyed Venezuela's economy years ago. Obviously the idiots masquarading as voters in Venezuela do not know that a previous Marxist already tried and failed at the very same policies that Chavez espouses.

And yes, I know that the distribution of wealth in South America is skewed toward a very small minority, however the solution is not socialism but Capitalism. I am not condoning dictatorships but if one has only a choice between a pro-business tyrant and a good-hearted socialist democrat then I pick the tyrant because in the end what matters most is what benefits the greatest number of people, as communists like to say. Because of a pro-business attitude in Chile, the people of that country enjoy a standard of living that is more than 5 times that of their South American brethren. And again, despite the outrageous amount of oil money fueling the Venezuelan economy, after ten years of "21st Century Socialism" of Hugo Chavez, 38% of his people still live in poverty, more than twice the rate of those in Chile. Where is the CIA when South America needs them?

Congress made a big mistake after the Watergate affair in reigning in the CIA. We will only realize it after Chavez, using his oil money, funds even more Marxist insurgents throughout South America. While Castro had a very small budget in trying to export his socialist dogma, Chavez has practically unlimited funds to destabilize the entire Southern Hemisphere. And because he can, he will.

But it's not all gloom. I suppose we should be happy that Muslims do not control all the oil in the world. At least with the Soviets, Mutually-Assured-Destruction had a deterrent effect since rational men would not knowingly desire the complete and utter destruction of the Earth. But with Islamic tyrants, the complete and utter destruction of the world is not a deterrence but an invitation to Paradise since Allah will bring the souls of all faithful Muslims into Heaven.

One has to acknowledge the difference between willing to die (but fervently hoping one won't) in defense of one's country and the desire to die (and fervently hoping one will) for one's God.

The Muslim apologist will say that Islam has been around for 1400 years and except for formerly non-Muslim entities like Spain, Anatolia (now Turkey), Indonesia, Malaysia, former Persian territories of what are now Afghanistan and Iran, the former Indian territories of what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh, the conquering of all of North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, most of Central Africa, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Albania, Kazakhstan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, except for these exceptions, Islam has been a rather peaceful religion, so why all the fuss about a non-existent threat from modern day Muslims?

If Muslims did not have oil, they would be but sand fleas on the world stage and unable to fund madrassas and build mosques and Muslim cultural centers [now that's an oxymoron]. Unfortunately our enemies do have oil and I doubt that we have the will to cut back our consumption enough to matter. My suggestion on how to turn our enemies into our friends is to give the CIA back its teeth. Let that organization destabilize the regimes of our enemies and install pro-American puppets. It worked before.

Since the Left already calls the United States a fascist and imperialistic regime when it's patently false, we have nothing to lose. What will they say then? That the US is really, really a fascist country?

I'm sure that most citizens who enjoy prosperity in Chile do not wake up every morning and say, "Thank God for America." They should, of course, but we are big enough of a country, we don't need to have gratitude for all our good deeds.