by James Glaser
March 17, 2003

Does it make America right because we have the ability to both buy and threaten other nations into voting our way in the United Nations Security Council? I don't think so. George Bush boxed himself into a corner by telling America that we will have a vote no matter what. Today we will see if that is true.

Can you even imagine the pressure that America is bringing to bear on the African countries in the Security Council? Cameroon, Guinea, and Angola are all small poor countries whose vote the United States needs right now. Each of these countries get aid from America and with the Aids epidemic raging in Africa a vote against the United Sates could cost each of these countries tens of thousands of lives. George Bush has his boot pressing down on these nation's leaders in order to get their vote.

But you know what. The whole world knows this is going on and not just with these three, but every Security Council Member. Every nation has felt America's boot at one time or another. "We will help your nation if you do as we say," has been used on numerous nations and it works. Remember, "Either you are with us or you are with the Terrorists." The only surprising thing in this whole Iraq War scenario is the fact that many nations are standing up to George Bush and saying, No!

After we attack and conquer Iraq our nation and its Military will be responsible for the safety of twenty five million people that are divided into tribes and religions that don't really care for others in their nation. Each of these groups have their own agenda for the future of their country.

America has made the Kurds in the north of Iraq free from Baghdad for the last ten years, with our "no fly zone." Now with that taste of freedom, who can blame those people for wanting a nation of Kurdistan. Well that is not going to happen according George Bush. Those Kurds are just going to have to learn how to get along with their life long foes in the rest of Iraq, because the United States has told Turkey and the world, we won't let Iraq fragment.

George Bush might just pull off a vote in his favor or he may decide to say we have all the justification we need in UN Resolution 1441. But the real test is if this war is good or bad will be in the number of innocent people that are killed and maimed. It doesn't matter if they die with a bullet in the brain or from some disease caused by American bombing all of their water and sewage treatment plants like in the last Gulf War. If you are an Iraqi parent and America kills just your child, you will vote that this war was a failure. One innocent child killed is too many.

Dead is dead and the cause of death matters little. What matters is the fact that you cannot liberate dead people. No one in the Security Council nor in the Anti War movement are supporting Saddam Hussein or even defending him. However most of the world would like to make the disarmament of Iraq and that is what Resolution 1441 is all about, as pain free as we can.

Many countries would like to listen to what the Weapons Inspectors we hired have to say and right now they are saying that Iraq is disarming. Not as fast as George Bush wants, but progress is being made and no one is getting killed. The world is now realizing that disarmament wasn't really what George Bush wanted. Finally these nations can see even if Iraq did disarm totally tomorrow, George still wants Saddam's head.

Most people in this world are afraid that the United States will rain down thousands of rockets and missiles on the civilian population of Iraq, because we have told them that is our plan and we have done that in each and every war we have been in. The military will talk about precision guided weapons and how they make every effort to limit civilian deaths, but the world knows that does not work as often as we claim or we would like.

Now America is testing the largest conventional bomb ever produced. This is not a precise weapon, but one of extreme overkill. That is just what it will do, kill! America with every weapon of mass destruction at her disposal, America with the strongest military force the world has ever seen, is now developing new weapons because we don't feel we have enough weapons to kill with.

Can any of you even imagine what America and this world would be like if we spent just half of our military budget on peaceful projects. America would still be spending more than the next 3 or 4 countries combined on weapons for killing, but we just might do so much good with all of that other half of the military budget, terrorism would fade into the past.

Such a shame we don't have the leadership in this nation with enough courage to try it.