saddam is no longer ruler of iraq, and that’s a huge step in the right direction for the future of iraq. we did the right thing by getting rid of him. he was a threat to us and to neighboring countries. bush said that saddam had chemical and biological weapons because he did have them in the past, and it was reasonable to believe that he still had them. of course, with saddam not fully co-operating with the UN weapons inspectors, there’s no way to have concrete proof that the US and the UK and others got it wrong. all saddam had to do to stop the invasion, if no WMDs were present, was to allow full access for the weapons inspectors. two possibilities exist. either saddam had a death wish, or he had something he was hiding from us. do you really think saddam was stupid enough to risk invasion of iraq just so that his neighbors could still have the illusion that iraq was armed with WMD? i guess it’s possible. after all, saddam was never known for his great military strategy.

based on what we knew about saddam’s history, isn’t it logical to err on the side of caution? ask yourself what would have happened if bush was right and saddam used those WMD’s. imagine the political fallout from that decision to do nothing about saddam. dubya was screwed either way with this decision. either he lets a guy with a known history of being evil to his own people and starting wars with other countries keep on breaking the rules and potentially acquire WMD, or he uses military force to remove saddam as a threat. what a tough decision.

there are many good reasons why saddam had to be replaced. that’s what the president was arguing — that saddam was a threat who needed to be dealt with. his press people were not on message when they responded affirmatively to the questions about saddam being an “imminent threat”. that’s just a matter of semantics, i guess, because even though the President didn’t use those exact words, he did emphasize the urgency of dealing with saddam sooner rather than later.

i don’t want the US to be the world’s policemen. i don’t want the US to be constantly bailing out countries that should be handling their own business. in an ideal world, the UN would be handling these international affairs and enforcing its own regulations against rogue members. this world can never, and will never, exist. the UN has too many of its own internal problems to effectively handle the problems and concerns of its members. that’s why i’m not convinced that even if the UN is reformed, it will ever meet our expectations.

(to be continued–comments return after part 2 is posted)

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