Simple Simon

Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Let me taste your ware."

Says the pieman to Simple Simon,

"Show me first your penny."

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,

"Indeed I have not any."

--Simple Simon, children's rhyme

If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding.
How can you have any pudding
if you don't eat yer meat?

--Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd

________

The wisdom of "this-before-that" is an understood. The above are some frivolous examples of a pretty hard and fast rule.

GWB and his Phony War on Terror are going to be history soon because clearly, there is no quantifiable nor sustainable goal to be achieved. The National Command Authority should be exploring what the military should be doing in the future.

Ranger thinks the first warfighting measure to consider is to get U.S. civilian contracts out of the theatre of operations.

"We will never go to war in the future without civilian assistance," because the active military lacks the people for the job, said Jack Holly, logistics director for the Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division (Attacks on Convoys Rise.)"

If "the military lacks the people for the job," then address the manpower issue before going to war, or don't go to war.

Too simple? No, but this is a crew for whom the rules do not apply, it seems.