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The article is superb; however, less than 10% of it relates to an immediate causus belli; i.e., less than 10% is valid reasons why the US must declare and fight a war against Iraq NOW. Nevertheless, before I proceed, because of my screen name, I must first reassure all readers that I have seen through all the propaganda that my Arab brother-in-law has dished out, and I am convinced that the Israelis are in the right 99.44% of the time, as the old soap commercial goes. The stated causus belli for war with Iraq NOW is that Saddam Hussein will provide fanatics the materials to create, or will furnish to them ready made, weapons of mass destruction which they will use against the USA. (I'll come back to the possible use of them against Israel at the end of this post.) A key sentence in his article making this point is: "And this is where Al Qaeda can provide him with not only the delivery mechanism, but also, to Saddam’s irrational and misinformed mind, a form of plausible deniability." However, the author undermines this premise for a causus belli with other statements to the effect that we can't prove a direct link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. I respect the author, but I have a much stronger case for a much wider war.

Specifically, my stated causus belli with Iraq NOW is to deal with the greatest apparent current threat of state-sponsored and abetted terrorism without splitting hairs. That is, some cry that North Korea has reared its ugly head and must be dealt with first. I respectfully disagree. The US, even with all our allies, is much more likely to succeed taking on regimes that sponsor and abet terrorism one at a time. In other words Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, etc. as well as North Korea, must be dealt with IN TURN based upon our best guess as to the respective priority until these fanatics have no single square mile on Earth to hide, no place to lay their head, and no regime left on the Earth to support and abet them. This scope of war includes Cuba, China, Vietnam, and all other despotic dictatorships in the entire world, at the right time for each. The mere fact that terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda exist coupled with the fact that regimes exist that either do or would support them is sufficent causus belli - either we overcome them - including eliminating all of their possible bases - or they will overcome us. It is that simple. Our survival as a nation depends upon eliminating this threat. If we do not practically eliminate this threat, we ourselves will degenerate into a police state to maintain a modicum of homeland security while sporadic attacks continue to occur. I can say this because Al Qaeda et al. have made it clear that they are willing to take years to prepare and mount attacks. And, after each attack, we will either become more paranoid as a people, or we will be more firm and more proactive in hunting them down and eliminating their safe havens, one by one.

These are only my opinions and they certainly are vast in scope, so I will not be surprised if they are not heeded, especially not right away. All freedom loving peoples should rightly be concerned about the prospect of an immense land war in Asia that extends to the Philippines and some other exotic places. This is why we should take on only one despotic regime at a time. However, we must take on each regime in turn, just as it is essential to eradicate each hornet's nest lest we be stung.

Finally, here is the part I promised about Israel. For many years most Arabs and some other miscreants boasted that they would drive the Jews in Israel into the sea. I will not digress into my religious beliefs about why these efforts were doomed to utter failure, but just looking at Israel's current arsenal, it is evident that no convnetional Arab or other force can eliminate the State of Israel, especially because Israel has the support of the US and some other freedom-loving peoples. Therefore, in desperation, the die-hards have turned to organized terrorism. This effort is also doomed to fail because the terrorists made the fatal mistake of attacking the US. As long as we understand that we are not safe as long as these fanatic die-hards have shelter and succor anywhere on Earth, we will win. Israel will eventually benefit greatly, but in the interim, the die-hards and their co-conspirators may afflict them with weapons of mass destruction interspersed with lesser attacks. They refer to Israel as "Little Satan" and the US as "Big Satan". Our fates are thus now inexorbially intertwined; i.e., ever since 9/11/2001. An attack on Israel is an attack on the US and vice versa, and the same is true for all of our allies, because each successful attack reduces our combined ability to defeat them and deny them any sanctuary. This settles once and for all why Iraq must be dealt with first, i.e., NOW - it is the closest high threat State to Israel.