"We are not dealing with peaceful men."

And so it comes to this. Well really, what did you expect? Oh, you in the corner, the carping little ninnie who occasionally does an infomercial, STFU. For the rest....

Once upon a time, I was a cop. Among other things, I was a crisis (hostage) negotiator. Not that I really had to sit and perform The Real Deal, but lots of training, lots of practise, lots of scenarios. One of the training sessions was with the FBI, an agency that has learned a thing or two from failed negotiations (see Waco and/or Ruby Ridge). One of the things they learned was to resist the action imperative. That is, don't do something just because you feel that you must do something.

For many, that would appear to be the case with Iraq. We don't have to do anything, the reasoning goes, so why are we?

Well, the FBI was also careful to point out that sometimes matters require more than mere talk. You can't always talk that bank robber into giving up peacefully. You can't always talk that insane parent out of killing their own child. And you certainly can't always negotiate a peaceful settlement with terrorists, especially those whose primary aim in life is to see you in a grave. Which they can then use as an open air toilet just to remember the sweet sensation of watching you die.

No, these people are, ahem, difficult to negotiate with.

Negotiation pre-supposes good faith on both sides. No, correction. A successful negotiation pre-supposes good faith on both sides. In Iraq, Hussein negotiates with his fingers crossed. At best. At worse, his hands are under the table loading a pistol, getting ready to hand it to some useful idiot, who will then put the the business end of that bullet into your brain.

Everyone acknowledges that Hussein is that not-rare-enough creature, a true human monster. Do a Google search. Review the outrages of Saddam Hussein.

So why isn't everyone all for kicking the bastard out? I think the reasons are simple. Those who oppose action in Iraq are 1) anti-Bush, 2) anti-capitalism, 3) anti-American, and 4) have too much personal stock invested in Hussein's dictatorship. Amazingly, whenever you start a conversation with someone opposed to US action against Iraq, when you've pegged them into a corner with lots of reality slaps, their "argument" disintegrates into variations of a theme. Theme = "Well, Bush isn't really President anyway!"

So that's Number 1 with a bullet.

Number 2 is an objection to our nation's success. Jealous? More like anger. "Damnit," they seem to mutter, "in theory our Marxist-Socialist state should be the utopia of the world, rather than a degenerate sink hole of corruption and murder. It must be the fault of those damn capitalists. Death to the capitalists!"

Puh-leez! Did any of those notice that the "new Europe" being discussed are all former members of the Soviet bloc? That they lived under real and horrid dictators? That almost every single one of them is saying, "Yeah, kick that little bastard out!"

Number 3 is an extension of Number 2, but more focused. Some capitalist societies are all right, like France, because they suck so much money off their private industries that they can't survive without government subsidies (review any European industry that attempts to compete outside its own national borders; see as an example, Airbus International). In America, though, capitalism is a blood sport, so those bastards must be stopped! So obviously, again, those pesky Yankee dogs must die.

And Number 4 is the one that hurts them the most. Yes, Mary Jane, Gulf War II is about oil. It's about French interest in Iraqi oil. It's about Russian interest in Iraqi oil. The last thing it's about is Dubya's interest in any Iraqi oil, except to make sure that money made off that oil actually helps build the country, rather than a bunch of extravagent palaces that are grand excuses for hidden arsenals (at worse) or huge examples of a driving need for ego-boost (at best).

Gads, there are more reasons to plow that man under, and there are stupider stated "reasons" against doing so. But what I find fascinating, what I think expresses the issue so very clearly, is that a 12+ year cease fire has been violated since roughly, oh, day one of that cease fire. Hussein never surrendered. We agreed to stop shooting at him and his men if he agreed to live up to certain promises.

He never has.

Ergo, no more cease fire, and Gulf War II is actually the conclusion of Gulf War I, in much the same way that WW2 was actually the end of WW1 (and WW2 didn't end until the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that's history for another day). This whole sad affair with the United Nations reminds me of the League of Nations, which was supposed to prevent WW2 from ever happening. Hitler calmly rebuilt a huge military force, in flagrant violation of surrender terms from WW1, and all anyone sought was appeasement. A certain wine country built a Maginot Line, stood behind it, and ignored all treaty violations happening to the east. They became interested only when a German tank rumbled along the champs de'lyse. Damnit, ze are annoying ze flies!

So, no, I'd rather we not just sit around and wait until Hussein got a fly up his nether, and decided to scratch the itch by popping a Scud loaded with something unpleasant onto Israel. You know, that country he refers to -- to this day -- as "the Zionist entity." See how peaceful he is?

Or hands off to his buddy, Osama bin Hidin' (or one of his comrades), something equally nasty. Which in turn, because we are one big open country (thank God, and I don't really want to change it...much -- doh!) that Nasty Thing ends up in one US city or another.

So, let's all STFU, lock and load, and get to work.