Just a couple

more words about my last two columns, and then it's on to something else.

I raised Maj.

Martin Poffenberger's hackles two weeks ago with a column that posed the

question: How do we justify crossing an ocean and killing other people's

children?

The major's

response was very thoughtful and lengthy and I don't intend to respond

to all of it, and in fact I agree with almost all of it. That's the point,

actually. Sometimes by simply raising a sensitive question you get accused

of saying all kinds of things you never said.

Maybe I touched

a nerve.

The only point

I'll respond to is Maj. Poffenberger's indignant response to something

he feels I "seemed to imply," that being that "the United

States has somehow made a policy of killing children."

All I ask is

that you actually read the words in the column and I think you'll see

that not only did I not say that, but it isn't even remotely implied.

Of course we don't have a "policy" of killing children. I just

said we're doing it, a fact that can't be denied.

Nor can it

be denied that, when we decide to wage such a bombing campaign, the loss

of innocent life is inevitable. Therefore, we've made a conscious decision

to do it, regardless of the well-documented fact that we go out of our

way to prevent it as much as possible.

As for whether

some claims of thousands of innocent deaths can be substantiated, that's

way beside the point. How many is too many? Reports in the hundreds are

definitely substantiated. When I raised the question of whether this decision

is justified, it was in hopes of making people stop and think. I'm comfortable

that we've made the right decision, and I hope the good major will forgive

me for stirring up his well-stated though somewhat defensive response.

Now for a subject

180 degrees removed from the above.

My favorite

taxes.

Those who read

this space all the time can probably ignore this. It's for those who may

not pay attention, all that closely, to the ends and outs of politics,

but who hear the sound bytes and sometimes wonder what in the heck the

politicians are talking about.

So you hear

a Ted Kennedy or a Tom Daschle explaining in a very fatherly tone that

the reason they have to oppose the president's tax cut package is that

most of it is "targeted" to "the richest among us,"

or "the super-wealthy," or some such phrase. I think one liberal

used the term "slathering money on the wealthy."

Then you'll

hear the president or House Speaker Dennis Hastert respond, doing their

best to also sound fatherly, that their tax cut is designed to create

jobs, put people