by James Glaser
December 30, 2002

Just about every politician including the President, is looking forward to a war with Iraq and the votes that they think that war will garner for them. The media keeps telling us about the continued troop buildup around Iraq and I have no doubt we will whip Saddam in a matter of days.

What the media and those politicians fail to understand is, people with war time experience and antiwar groups are against this war, not because they think America will lose or have heavy casualties, but because they know from our history that thousands of innocent people will get killed in the process.

I often wonder how the heck we can have a President that claims to be Pro-Life and is also Pro-War at the same time. No President in my life time nor any that I can think of in history, has done as little to avoid a war as George Bush. Do any of you people know if we have a phone line to Iraq? Is it possible that George Bush could call up Saddam and start talking.

I am an adult and if I am slighted by some one or hear that they feel slighted by me, I call them up and try to work things out. That is how problems get solved by adults. After the phone call, a face to face meeting works best. Maybe you will never be friends, but you will be able to work things out and many times you find that both of you had it wrong. You know what, it takes all the stress right out of the problem.

Some might say that is a naive thought and maybe it is, but listen to this once. Ever since the Gulf War we have had a continuos bombing of the north and south thirds of Iraq, calling it our no-fly zone. In all that time almost twelve years I have never heard that America has tried to start a diplomatic dialog with Saddam. We just bomb and continue to stop all needed medical supplies and infrastructure repair material from getting to Iraq and because of this, we admit that our actions have killed over 500,000 children. Now we say Saddam is a terrorist and has weapons of mass destruction and we must disarm him.

This last Sunday morning on one of the news programs Colin Powell was asked where the proof was about Saddam's weapons and I kid you not, Powell said that we had already presented that proof. Well I must have missed that.

Know what else? Last week Afghanistan and three other countries signed a agreement to build a oil/gas pipe line across their countries. What a surprise huh? Our government will tell us that this war with Iraq has nothing to do with oil though.

When George Bush talks about Iraq and how evil Saddam is, he is only speaking to his own choir and like wise, Saddam is talking to his. There is a total lack of communication between these two heads of state that are going to go to war with each other. I don't think it would be a sign of weakness for George to make the first move and start talking. In fact I think that not only would it be a sign of strength, but also what a real Christian would do. "Blessed are the Peace Makers."

Our choir only sings George's songs, which builds up his confidence and in this case his anger for the other choir director (Saddam). I would just have to think that with a phone call George could give Saddam a way out that would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, but it might not be the vote getter that a war will be.

Remember, Saddam was our employee for years and he was a good employee. We gave him billions of dollars in weapons, chemicals, biological agents, and cold hard cash. Things went sour when there were miscommunications before Iraq attacked Kuiwait. Saddam asked us if he could and thought we said yes.

George's Dad George, (yes that always confuses me too) went to war for that bad phone call and his popularity shot up through the roof. Well our George thought this new war would do the same for him. You have to remember that votes are more important in America than some little Arab kids life. Yeah, I think that is sick too, but that is the way it is now.

So it looks like because we have a President who isn't man enough or adult enough to talk to Saddam Hussein either by phone or face to face, about our problems, thousands of innocent people will die in a war designed to garner votes for George Bush's second term.