Jewish World Review Jan. 24, 2003 / 21 Shevat, 5763

Raoul Lowery Contreras

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We must go to war is to maintain the integrity of the United Nations


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | People have been massing all over the country these past few days. Soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas were ordered to the Middle East; 10,000 sailors and U.S. Marines left San Diego in a flotilla of ships for the Arabian Sea; Reservists throughout the country are being called to active duty.

In Washington, D.C. and other American cities, aging Vietnam era protesters came out of their closets, necessarily wearing brassieres this time.

Many of these people claimed as many as 500,000 Iraq war protesters massed in Washington to voice their objections to a war that hasn't yet happened. They claimed that 200,000 protesters turned out in San Francisco. In each instance they were wrong. Legitimate observers stated that the Washington crowd might have been large, but certainly not 500,000. In Baghdad by the Bay, San Francisco, there might have been 40-50,000, but no more, despite the squeals of the protestors who claim 200,000.

More important than exactly how many aging 60s Vietnam War protesters protested is who didn't show up to the rally at Washington's Mall. Unlike the Vietnam War protests, there was no U.S. Senator or House Representative speaking at the rally, nor even present. Only the silly pro-Arab, anti-Semitic Al Sharpton was there.

They weren't there because, unlike the protestors, they know that this country must go to war against Iraq to rid that country of its ruling dictators and repressive military. Senators and Congressmen see intelligence reports every day, as do our British friends and allies. Protesters don't and neither do their Hollywood dilettantes like airhead actors George Clooney, Martin Sheen (my personal favorite) and a gaggle of others.

Thief Saddam Hussein steals billions of dollar income from oil that belongs to the Iraqi people. Hussein even owns slick woman's magazine ELLE through Swiss holding companies. He subjugates Iraqis by killing anyone who dares disagree with him. He has attacked neighboring countries, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Iran. He pays terrorists to blow up the Jews of Israel. He has pledged to kill all Jews.

One real reason we must go to war is to maintain the integrity of the United Nations. Over the past ten years, the United Nations has passed a number of Security Council resolutions demanding that Hussein dismantle his nuclear and chemical/biological apparatus that he has used against Iran and his own people in Northern Iraq.

The first was Security Council Resolution 667 a decade ago. He has refused to comply and even ordered out of the country United Nations munitions inspectors in 1998. Moreover, he has reneged on every item he agreed to abide by when his army crumbled in front of US forces in the Gulf War.

If the United Nations is to continue to exist and be something more than a health organization, it must be able to back up its collective will. It does not have its own military and shouldn't. It should and must rely on armed forces contributed from member countries. It, like most countries, won't move until too late, thus countries like the USA, Great Britain and other allies must force the United Nations out of its own inertia and stagnation.

Consider that when Bill Clinton was President, hundreds of thousands of African blacks were slaughtered in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo, neither the U.N. or the United States did anything to save those hundreds of thousands. Unfortunately for those hundreds of thousands of dead people, the USA did nothing because President Clinton didn't want to do anything to save those lives. Where were these aging Vietnam War protesters then? Now, the protestors support a murderous dictator because they hate our President (Drop Bush not bombs, their signs state). Why, they even claim Bush's proposed preemptive strike is illegal. They are, of course, unaware that if we don't strike back at appropriate times, worse incidents and attacks occur because our enemies think we are soft and cowardly, like our protestors. In 1936, German soldiers retook the Rhineland that had been taken away from Germany by the WWI Allies as part of victory over Germany. The Germans rode into the Rhineland on bicycles while French soldiers and police stood by and watched. If the French had stopped the Germans by shooting them dead, would Hitler have led Europe and the World into the worst war in history? Would he had been able to order the murder of as many as six-million Jews and millions of other Poles, Czechs, French, Russians, et al?

In 1937, Imperial Japanese forces attacked the U.S. Navy ship, Panay, in China and killed Americans. President Roosevelt did nothing and that inaction contributed to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and four years of Japanese occupation and brutality throughout the Pacific and mainland Asia. Millions of people died that might have been saved had we attacked Japan after the Panay incident in 1937.

In 2001, on September 11, we were attacked and 3,000 people died on our soil. We went after those we determined were responsible and rid Afghanistan of most of them. Their leader Ussama Bin Laden is either in hiding like the coward he was, or he is dead.

It is common knowledge that Iraq has cooperated with Ussama Bin Laden's organization, Al Qaeda, the murderer's of September 11th. It is also common knowledge that Hussein has spent billions in developing the ubiquitous "weapons of mass destruction." We know what he had in 1998 and that he has not destroyed any of those weapons. He has hidden them well, but he has them nevertheless. It has been proven over and over that Hussein has financed terrorist groups like Hamas and paid families of Muslim "martyrs."

The United Nations has demanded that Iraq disarm and it has not done so. It has lied and cheated for a decade while maintaining and building and hiding more weapons of mass destruction.

President George W. Bush is right; he has the Constitution on his side, for he is the Commander in Chief and can order the military to attack anyone he feels is a threat to the country. The aging 1960s protestors disagree, but what do they know?

Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democratic candidate for President, knows. He states he has seen the evidence and that the United Nations, or the United States, must remove Saddam Hussein, by force if necessary.

Newsweek polls show that the vast majority (60%)of Americans support President Bush in his quest to disarm Iraq and remove Hussein. They believe national Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice when she wrote: "…instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie."

As for phantom protestors on protest Saturday, of the 3-million people in my city maybe 1500, one thousand five hundred, protestors showed up to bang the drums of support for evil, for Saddam Hussein. The question is: What are these Peace protestors for?

Are they for "peace in our time?" Are they for saving "innocent" lives of Iraqi women and children? Are they for saving the lives of professional volunteer American soldiers, sailors and Marines? Are they supporting a bloody dictator who has killed thousands of his own people and gassed his enemies, foreign and domestic? Are they for genocide of Israel's Jews by a terrorist egomaniac? Are they for labeling the President of the United States a baby killer, a murderer?

One newspaper in San Diego reported: "The turnout stunned event organizers and marchers alike. "This (1500 people) is just amazing," said coalition member Steven Skozcen of Escondido. "It just speaks at how strongly people feel about the war in Iraq."

1500 aging Vietnam War protestors feeling "strongly" among millions who know what America's real interests are, big deal.

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JWR contributor Raoul Lowery Contreras is a columnist, radio talk-show host, and author of "The New American Majority, Hispanics, Republicans & George W. Bush" and "A Hispanic view: American politics and the politics of immigration." Comment by clicking here.

01/14/03:"Stabbed in the Back by Friends"
01/07/03: Minorities will be the first to die in Bush's "oil wars"?

© 2003, Raoul Lowery Contreras