by James Glaser
March 10, 2003

After the first Gulf War Saddam Hussein would have said anything, he would even say that he would disarm, just to get that huge World Army off his border. Anything to keep them from coming to Baghdad. Now George Bush and Colin Powell find it incredulous that Saddam would now play games with that disarmament.

These two men can not be so naive that they would think Saddam or any dictator would give up the very weapons that keep them in power. Both George and Colin think Iraq should just roll over, but the world doesn't work that way. They will say "we won!" Iraq has to obey us. Well George Bush #1 blew that and took Saddam's word. What a fool he was to do that. Don't ever take the word of a cornered dictator and let him out of that corner. Each and every country has their own brand on Nationalism and even Iraqis are patriotic. Saddam Hussein and many Iraqis believe that their country has just as much right to weapons as the United States

I can only imagine what kind of cooperation the United States would give to a United Nations Inspection Program on our soil. Personally I find it just amazing that some Iraqi Patriot hasn't started shooting United Nations Inspectors, because I can tell you that is what would happen in America. American Patriots would fight, before we let some foreign body control our air space, start walking through the White House or our Nations Capital looking for weapons, and then tell us just what weapons we can have. Americans, real Americans would lay down their lives to protect our country no matter what the odds.

I cannot understand that George Bush and Colin Powell can't see this. I would hope that both of these men would stand up for America if the roles were reversed.

Now no one will argue that Saddam is a good ruler, on the contrary the man is a thug, but I contend he is Iraq's thug and for America to now tell the world we must remove the leader of this country, that just happens to be sitting on billions and billions of barrels of oil, by the force of War is wrong.

The disarming of Iraq is being pursued to make this world safer. Killing thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqis, the very people we claim we want to liberate, does nothing to make this world safer. In fact War on Iraq by the United States and Great Britain alone, will only set America farther apart from those in the Middle East who need the example of our form of government so that they can gain the freedom we enjoy for themselves.

Thursday night I was so very very embarrassed that President Bush was still using that same lame excuse of "they hate us and our freedom" as the reason for the September 11th terrorist attack. I strongly doubt that the poor people of the third world or any one in this world hates freedom. It is so asinine for President Bush to keep up this goofy line. Nobody is buying that and it is dishonest.

Now the United Nations Security Council is deciding what should be done to finish the disarmament of Iraq. George Bush, Colin Powell, and the War Mongers in Washington are pushing to launch an attack on Iraq now. Many other nations are willing to wait a little while longer and give inspections a chance.

I know people will jump up and say, "we have been waiting 12 years." Well that is not quite true. Since 1998 we haven't inspected at all and only started this round of inspections four months ago, with actual inspections going on for less than 12 weeks.

So America, Britain, and Spain can go in and disarm Iraq by force, killing an unknown number of the people we claim we want to liberate. Or we can wait for four more months like the very inspectors we have hired to disarm Iraq, have told us they need.

I just don't want America to kill and maim thousands of Iraqi children. Iraq has a population of 24 million people and 12 million of them are children under 15 years of age. Those countries that want war will say it is Saddam's fault if we kill those children, but every American in our armed forces that has to kill a child will live with that for the rest of their life. Even if they do not personally pull the trigger, the vision of all those dead and dying children will live with them for ever.

The reason that America can do this, killing of children, is because our nation's leaders do not have any idea of what war is. Every terrorist group in this world will have thousands of pictures of those little broken bodies to use for their recruitment posters.

Now there are two sides to this problem. Those that want war to disarm Iraq and those that will do EVERYTHING they can to avoid war and still disarm Iraq. No matter how long we have to keep all of this pressure on Saddam to make him disarm, it will be both less expensive than war and we will not be killing children and infants.

So we give the weapons inspectors the four months they want and if it doesn't work, well then George Bush and Colin Powell can ship some white horses over to Iraq and ride at the head of a thundering herd of Marines and smite every woman and child in their path. Just like in the first Gulf War, Saddam will be in hiding and his troops will surrender. Also like that first Gulf War the United States will kill tens of thousands of innocent people, in fact the very people we tell the world we are liberating.

The American citizen is still under the illusion that Iraq is some sort of world power. Iraq for all practical proposes has no Navy or Air force. They have a small amount of well trained Republican Guard troops that we think are loyal to Saddam. In a real sense, Iraq is a third world country that has a military we destroyed twelve years ago. Iraq knows if they use Weapons of Mass Destruction, America will annihilate them.

By making an unprovoked attack on Iraq, America will be playing into the hands of every terrorist network on earth. Every one that has ever had a bone to pick with the United States will be able to say that America does not have the patience to let peaceful solutions work. With the start of this war we become the Merchants of Death.