by James Glaser
November 11, 2002

That is how America would have to write out the check to pay off the National Debt on 11/08/02. In Numbers it is, $6,270,390,445,179.17.

Right now George Bush has us 200 Billion dollars in deficit and with a war in Iraq we can double that or more. With these numbers George wants to make his tax cut permanent. George says with this tax cut, America will get more money in taxes to pay off this debt. Hey, don't ask me, the guy is a politician and they can say anything and don't have to make sense at all.

That is as far as I am going with this, except to tell you that you and every other American now owes $21,711.31 if we divide that debt up "Even Steven," but remember that is going up every day too.

What I want to talk about today is safety. Hey, do you feel safer than you did right after the September 11th attack? Do any of you feel safer now that we bombed all of the few remaining buildings in Afghanistan? How about the killing of a few thousand innocent people over there, did that make you feel more secure?

Former Senators Warren B. Rudman and Gary Hart just gave their report titled, "America still unprepared, America still in danger." The title pretty much tells you how safe they feel. These two guys are the ones that warned Washington of imminent danger from terrorist attacks in a report before Sept.11th. Few listened then, maybe they will this time.

George now has a "secret government" and has really cut our domestic civil liberties in the name of the War on Terrorism, but really that is about it.

The deadline for making airlines safe from explosives in luggage and cargo has come and gone, too expensive. Only 1% of the 50,000 cargo containers that come to our country each and every day are checked, but we have figured out how we are going to attack Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Now I bet that makes you feel safer.

Now think of this, America is just as safe as the borders of Mexico and Canada are, because any terrorist that makes it into either of those two countries will be able to walk in to ours. We have millions of illegal immigrants in this country and more are coming every day. Our pipelines and refineries are unprotected and just think of all the trucks running around America with chemicals and explosives, but we are ready to attack Iraq.

While George Bush is all agog about getting Saddam, the rest of our country is pretty much open to another terrorist attack. Rudman and Hart spell it out so even George should be able to see that, but he is blinded in his need to kill Iraqis. George wants to win something.

Sure we devastated Afghanistan, but we didn't get Osama nor Mulla Omar. George wants a country we can plant our flag on and say to the world, "See America's Power!" Other than it being a sign of brashness, I can see no reason for George Bush to tell the world how America is going to attack Iraq, but he is and for that same reason we gave Omar and bin Laden advance warning of our attack. All that tells the world is that we don't care for the safety of our troops out in the field.

If George Bush must have this war and in doing so he sacrifices the defense of our nation, then do it and have the war. Quit playing all the word games, quit telling Saddam what we are going to do. Certainly America can devastate Iraq again, that is no contest, but what is with all the strutting and crowing that our President is doing?

Saddam is one thing, while the War on Terrorism is something totally different. The Terrorists have successfully attacked us once in America and will do it again if we let them. The resources we will be using in Iraq could be used to defend our homeland from a proven enemy.

I still don't know why we haven't tried to talk to Saddam in the last eleven years nor do I understand why we haven't tried to talk to those terrorist the world over to find out what they want. We know a lot of it, pull our troops out of their Holy Land of Saudi Arabia, stop Israel from subjugating Palestine, and quit backing the dictators of this world that treat their people so badly. Those are OK things with me.

Heck we give Israel enough money every year that we could build them a super fence that would make the Wall of China look like a garden fence and save money in the long run.

America is supposed to be a "Christen" country and believe in freedom and justice. Well if tomorrow George Bush told the world that America was going to bring education and clean drinking water to every one on the globe that needed it and we would start right now and feed all those that need food, and that our corporations were not going to patent every bean or corn plant on earth and that we would start to bring our troops home, terrorist movements would not be able to recruit anyone to attack us.

America as a nation has to decide if we want to continue on with the military solution to every problem as we have been since World War 2. We now know that with that approach there is the down side of leaving a path of hatred in our wake. With each new incursion into other countries, a certain percentage of those that suffer from our attack will do whatever they can to hurt us. With our repeated military ventures, those small percentages add up to millions and millions of people hating America. How long can America sustain that hatred?

Have you ever heard that question, "What would Jesus do?" We are claiming to be a Christian country and our leaders in Washington even claim to be born again in Jesus Christ, so that is a valid question.