by James Glaser
April 9, 2003

Colin Powell goes on and on about our "coalition" in this War with Iraq. President Bush brings them up at every chance. The Joint Chiefs of Staff never speak of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or the Marines. No, now every thing done in this War in Iraq is done by, Forces of the Coalition.

The coalition did this, the coalition did that, now even the press asks questions about coalition forces. I thought we were selling our souls and handing our troops over to the United Nations for years. Several American officers and enlisted men have given up their careers because the would not fight under United Nation appointed officers from other countries, while others protested fighting under the UN Flag.

No one has let out a peep about joining the "Coalition." Marines gave in without a fight and are now no longer United States Marines, no, now they are "coalition forces." It has been reported that American fighting men have been put under the command of British officers. Who knows, maybe next week they could be led by a General from Rwanda and I am sure he would know how to kill people. Take away our modern weapons and give our guys some good old Rwandan machetes. Hey don't laugh. In Rwanda our new friend in this coalition, they managed to kill 800,000 with these long blades and were efficient cause they burned bodies as they went, many even before the people died. Yes, Rwanda is a real asset for our coalition.

Many people including me have questioned the fact that only three countries, the United States, Britain, and Australia are strong enough coalition members to send troops to Iraq to help us. What we are missing though. is the Moral Support that so many of the other coalition members can bring.

Who could be more moral than Columbia, Panama, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Yes I know that these countries are not that important on the world stage, but in the world of illegal drugs these countries are massive. You just have to learn to look at these coalition members from a different perspective. You will soon see that the worlds leading nations are with us.

Now yes, it is true that we only have 1% of the worlds nations actually fighting at our side, but remember, almost 25% of all the countries on this globe have become coalition members. We are not alone in this, we have both Ice Land and Slovakia with us. I was going to say that the Solomon Islands were too, but when they found their name on the list of the "Willing" they raised a fuss and had to be stricken. The White House has not been informed yet and so keeps their name on the list.

It must be a blow to lose those Islanders, but we do still have Uganda, Uzbekistan, Singapore, and who could forget Latvia and Lithuania.

Now there are countries that are in the news quite a lot that are siding with us, think of Macedonia, El Salvador, Eritrea, and our partner in the Far East, Mongolia.

Now some of the nations that back us have names I have heard of, but I must admit I am not too sure of just where they are located. Think of Azerbaijan, Estonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Czech Republic, Georgia, Micronesia, and Palau. I do however know where Portugal, Poland, and the Philippines are.

Now to be fair I have not listed Costa Rica, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Honduras, or Hungary yet. Who could forget the power represented by Italy, Kuwait, and the Marshall Islands.

Yes there are still more in this coalition such as the Netherlands and Nicaragua. Then also Romania, Singapore and Spain. The last two are South Korea, whose nation is having huge protests against America keeping troops in their country and Japan, who can't send troops because the constitution we gave them after WW 2 forbids them that option.

Now some of you might wonder where our old and new friends are in all of this. President Bush had a "special relationship with President Putin of Russia. He could judge the man's character by looking at his eyes. Well that special guy said he just couldn't help us in this war. What about our best friends in Canada and Mexico? These two that have been with us through thick and thin, say, "no way." So much for being neighborly. Neither China nor India are on our team and each of their nation's population is larger than all of the Coalitions, so if we could have had them we would have had more than the 15% of the world's citizens that we have with us now. That isn't quite true as some coalition countries have populations that are over 80% against this war. In some nations democracy doesn't work that well. I guess some leaders couldn;t pass up our bribes.

France and Germany, can any of you believe that just because over 90% of their people were against this war, they had to say no. One would think these two were real democracies or something.

I wouldn't call it Fairy Land, but our leaders are living someplace other than the Real World if they are trying to tell American citizens that this Coalition of the willing gives us any sort of moral authority to wage this war on Iraq. With 85% of the worlds population against this war and 75% of the worlds nations saying we are wrong, America is out on a limb here.

Now the White House reports that the total population of the coalition countries is 1.17 billion people. For all of the money we have spent on getting these countries to go along with us, I would have to say that it is costing about 25-50 dollars for each person. Now don't be waiting for your check, Americans pay, everyone else receives.