Back in the good old days of playing Dungeons & Dragons, I made up fantasy characters for my adventures. I would roll the dice (and usually cheat) when it came to coming up with points for their different characteristics. These would includes categories like strength, charisma, dexterity, wisdom, constitution and even intelligence. I liked my characters to be strong, but I also thought they should have a fair amount of wisdom and intelligence. You can never have enough intelligence, I assumed. In America these days, it seems like intelligence is dirty word.

Of course, the intelligence I'm talking about has nothing to do with the education of children. No child will be left behind (unless the school's test results are low and their funding is cut). The intelligence I mean revolves around reasons to go to war with little brown people on the other side of the globe.

Remember back (if you can) to a time called 2002. The intelligence stated that our proclaimed evil doer named Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Not only did he have them, they claimed, but it was really only a matter of weeks before he decided to test them out on the United States. Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations with an empty vial and stated that something could be in it. Nothing was in it, but something could be. Don't you see? All that was based on intelligence.

Back to D & D. You could have a maximum amount of 18 points (three sixes on different dice, also the number of the devil for all of you with Christian intelligence). This was unless you were blessed or drank some magic potion or possessed some special ring, my precious. Never once while playing the game did my characters' intelligence cause a nation to go to war, but hey, that was just a fantasy game.

In the real world, in the new millennium, in the current administration, intelligence is the deciding factor on whether we should invade and occupy various countries in the Middle East. Everyone and their mother admitted that the intelligence was faulty with regards to Iraq. That would be about a 9 intelligence in D & D. Pretty stupid. FYI, we're still in Iraq and will be for the foreseeable future.

New intelligence came out this week that Iran dismantled its nuclear program in 2003, possibly because of the US invading next door. Our president has been beating the war drum about Iran lately, and I didn't think many were taking him seriously. Poor intelligence on my part.

My president (and yours) could have taken the high spin road and said 'See, invading Iraq frightened its neighbors to change their ways. I'm a genius!' That would be the spin less traveled. Instead, people are coming out of the woodwork to denounce the intelligence, accuse the intelligence community of conspiring against the president (remember Valerie Plame?), and the ever popular 'Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire' strategy. All this because no one wants to look like they were wrong about anything. Keep spinning.

My problem with all this intelligence hoo-hah is that it shows a fundamental change in how and why America fights wars. It used to be we would fight in response to acts against our country, both real (Pearl Harbor) and imagined (The Gulf of Tonkin). We would go to war with ex-Warsaw Pact baddies (Bosnia), and even have surprise little weekend and month-long wars (Grenada & Desert Storm). Now, we have preemptive strike wars. We attack countries because dictators in third world countries don't like us. We come up with reasons and excuses to attack countries because they haven't done anything to literally provoke us. The intelligence says so! FYI, the group that was responsible for the World Trade Center attack six years ago is still operating and controlling large chunks of Afghanistan. Who's the real enemy again?

So even the intelligence has turned against the president. There is no smoking gun to invade Iran, there is no intelligence, there is only the war drum of the powers that be. I wish I could say our president will be a lame duck. I wish he would quack around for another year and disappear to his ranch where he can play war with his toys all he wants.

Unfortunately, that wouldn't be very intelligent on my part. This president is dangerous. He has at least one more strategic military move left in him, and I wouldn't bet on it being a peaceful stance. The President has already proven he doesn't need intelligence at all to start another war.

Careful, America. We still have one more year of The Bush.

Chris Jungle has drank many magic potions and he is not any more intelligent.