Posted on 03/07/2003 3:09:39 AM PST by kattracks
Friday, March 7th, 2003
Newspapers, TV news and commentary programs, weekly magazines, quarterlies, placards by the million - just about every technique of shouting the news has said it day and night until listeners and readers from one end of the country to the other take it for granted: America is rushing to war.One day soon, the United States is likely to be fully at war against Iraq. Then, around the world, people of all nations, whether supporters of America or its enemies, will simply tell each other that the U.S. and its President started the war after a helter-skelter rush toward it. The consensus will be that the U.S. started the war like some wild cowboy country that lusted for the death of its young people. After all, all it had to do to obey the "stop the war" signs was turn to its chief enemy and say, Why sure, that's a great idea, why don't we do it right now, Saddy?
The facts, however, tell another story. Twelve years ago, after the end of the Gulf War, Iraq's Saddam Hussein became our responsibility; we've been trying to get rid of him ever since. But our Presidents during those years - first George Bush, then Bill Clinton - apparently forgot that we were responsible for him, or just didn't want to think about him.
There was no treaty - just a bunch of UN resolutions that Saddam tore up. What he did do in a hurry was set his country to making what he wants most in this world - chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. He rushed them while the U.S. and other theoretical victors of the war were impotent, unable even to find the bombs, much less destroy them.
Saddam was legally obligated to use the money from his oil exports to bring food and medicine into Iraq. He had a good laugh at that, then used the money to build more palaces and make the weapons of mass destruction that aroused such passion in him.
The weapons were illegal, but some Western countries and Russia sold their makings to Saddam anyway. As for the UN inspectorate in Iraq, it did not know a diddle about where the weapons had been hidden.
Of course, the U.S. could have found out if it had put its back to it. It could have made sure the weapons were discovered and punished Saddam with sanctions that hurt the Iraqi government, not the children. It could have put Saddam in prison, not just for violating UN resolutions, but for committing ceaseless, hideous tortures.
Bush I and Clinton did almost nothing. But here is a chuckle - if you feel in the mood for ugly humor. It was written into those scraps of paper that Saddam threw away that after 15 days, if he did not turn over a detailed list of the whereabouts of hidden chemical, bacteriological and nuclear materials, he would be considered to be in violation of UN rules.
The 15 days passed. More than 4,000 days passed. Yet nobody at the UN has thought of announcing the obvious: Saddam has been at war with the UN ever since 1991, really, truly, at war with the whole organization.
So the second Bush decided he would have to do something about it. He sees the Saddam arsenal as a threat to the U.S. and the torture chambers a disgusting shame to all nations that do not at least try to destroy them.
It is only compared to the sloth with which the UN has dealt with Saddam for more than a decade that the President seems to be rushing to get rid of him. Which he will do.
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