Once the bullets start flying and the bombs start dropping over Iraq, we should all stand in support of our president and our troops. This has been a time-honored tradition in our country. Ask any soldier in the field, and he’ll tell you that he can’t effectively fulfill his mission without the support of the American people.
But the bombs haven’t started falling yet, and the opportunity for a nonviolent resolution must be pursued vigorously and exhausted completely. Everyone in the United States, Europe and even the Arab world knows that Saddam Hussein is a brutal and murderous dictator who has used chemical and biological weapons on his own people. I have always believed that he possesses weapons of mass destruction — even before Colin Powell had us listen to intercepted telephone conversations and showed us satellite photos of alleged weapons sites during the secretary of state’s speech at the United Nations on Wednesday.
But Saddam has to be looked at in the context of assessing the possibility and immediacy of a threat to us, as well as to the rest of the world. Is there an immediate danger of us being attacked by him? Most analysts, even those who support going to war today, would say no. For that reason alone I would say: Let the inspectors continue to do their work.
On the contrary, most observers would say that North Korea presents a much more dangerous and immediate threat than Saddam. Ironically, North Korea has been challenging and criticizing U.S. policy, and our government’s response for the most part has been diplomatic rather than militaristic.
I don’t understand this insane rush to go to war. I lived in Lebanon for 10 years during wartime, and I can tell you there’s nothing worse than being right there in the middle of it, not knowing when you will be taking your last breath, not knowing when the phone will ring, bringing sad news about a loved one who’s been killed or injured.
We all still have a deep sense of resentment and anger after the attack of Sept. 11. We all have that feeling in our gut that someone somewhere must pay for that devastating event. But it’s shameful that the Bush administration is taking advantage of our grief to deceive us into a war with claims that somehow Saddam and al-Qaeda are one and the same and that, by invading Iraq, we are in essence attacking the people who attacked us.
I fully support the goal of creating a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, and pursuing a policy of disarming all the countries in the region from such weapons. But until and unless we have reached a consensus in our country and among the international community that attacking Iraq is truly our only choice, I urge our president to slow down the rush to war and inject a bit more diplomacy into the equation.
