...as does Iraq's.

It seems to me that everyone arguing against war indeed knows that Saddam is in breech of 1441, but feel "war" is more evil than Saddam sitting on stockpiles of WMD. Of course France and England felt the same about Hitler's munitions - until he used them against them.

I was reviewing an American Heritage article from November of 1990 regarding the middle east conflict and the doom predicted was amazing: tens of thousands of Kuwaiti casualties predicted and a long Vietnam type engagement. Reagan was heaped scorn upon in large amounts for being friendly by bribing Iran and Iraq in the 1980's. To show the counter view they had an image of Kuwaiti exiles brandishing a picture of Saddam with a swastika and some arabic slurs directed towards him. Today, one of the medias tactics for controlling public opinion is the suppression of stories which deal with Iraqi exiles and any in-depth story of the way life is lived for an average Iraqi.

Portraying Saddam as the victim of US aggression it takes a far stretch of the imagination - but that is exactly what the media attempts to do - even the pictures of Saddam in the news articles right now are meant to show contrite, humble expressions. (Gone are the photos of him firing the gun)

No, Saddam must go. Others should go too - and they fear their next. Because there are other despots as bad as Saddam does not mean we should look away from Saddam. Saddam has a track record of trying to take over other countries. That puts him in an exclusive club. (Yes, I can hear the rhetoric already: Oh! The US is the imperialist nation!) A President who calls a spade a spade is no friend of the dictators of the world, who have gotten a free ride from the UN and the nations who give lip service to human suffering but then hee and haw when someone actually does anything about it. (spare me the 'Bush is not doing this because of the Iraqi suffering but just for oil' tune - I know the lyrics to that one already)

Bottom line is we are all immaterial to Bush's decision. He is the President and has a congressional bill authorizing the use of force. We can protest or support - but it will not change the outcome, except perhaps to give the democrats and independents a few more votes in the next election - which is what this is really all about.

Thanks for a fun discussion. Come to think of it - I can't recall how often YOU have even confessed being wrong on an issue.

;-)

SDAI-Tech1