I have a good imagination. Even when I disagree with a point of view, I can usually imagine how I might be wrong. For example, I don’t believe that alien spaceships have visited earth, but I can imagine it. And I don’t believe that Dick Cheney is the love child of Lucifer and a penguin. Seriously, I don’t. But I can imagine it.

What amazes me is when I run into a point of view that I literally can’t imagine in any way that makes sense. For example, I’ve been trying to imagine how the “surge” strategy in Iraq could fix things. The word “surge” implies it’s temporary. The bad guys plan to be around forever, which is longer than temporary. It seems to me that they’ll just take their badness where the surge isn’t happening and then come back after the U.S. forces leave. That’s just my admittedly uneducated guess about how things work. I could be wrong. To give the alternate viewpoint a fair shake, I wrinkle my forehead and squint and try to imagine how the surge could work. So far I have come up with these imagined scenarios:

1. The insurgents from all over Iraq decide to throw their guns down and run toward Baghdad in broad daylight yelling WALALALALALALA!!! SHOOT ME! WALALALALALA!!!

2. The word “surge” turns out to be the Arabic word for “pork flavored bullets.” When word gets around, all the insurgents start yelling WALALALALALALA and running toward the ocean where they drown.

3. The surge is successful at gaining control of parts of Baghdad. This unexpected success seems to be a sign from God, so all the insurgents convert to Judaism. They still yell WALALALALALALA but only at the Wailing Wall.

On the other side of the Iraq argument are the people who say the war has made the U.S. less safe because our military is stretched thin.

Huh?

There’s no question that we’ve depleted our military resources, especially the people. But I’m trying to imagine the scenario where those reduced resources make me less safe. Here’s what I’ve imagined so far:

1. China decides it’s a good time to attack its most important customer and be incinerated in a nuclear fireball.

2. We forgo the opportunity to invade Iran by land and, as is our custom, accidentally create a few million additional terrorists.

3. We don’t have enough forces to pursue Bin Laden in the places where Pakistan doesn’t let us go anyway.

4. We don’t have enough forces permanently stationed in Japan to help out in case Godzilla returns.

5. Beer-soaked Canadians start throwing snowballs over the border and won’t listen to reason.

That’s the best I can imagine. Someone paint me a scene where either the surge works or the degradation of the military makes me less safe. I’m here to learn.