Mr. President, It's Time To Roll
By Trevor Bothwell (03/16/03)
President Bush would do well to remember this week the now-infamous phrase he employed to rally the nation against international terrorism after 9/11; the slogan that has come to symbolize our commitment to exterminating terrorists across the globe and those who abet them; the motto of a unified band of American patriots led by Todd Beamer as they carried out their civic mission over the skies of Pennsylvania and bravely sabotaged an otherwise imminent fourth attack on U.S. soil: "Let's roll."
Mr. President, it's time to call this current U.N. charade what it is: a farcical imitation of legitimate international discourse that, at best, will delay aggression against a ruthless Iraqi dictator, and at worst, could spell even more disaster in the form of human lives for innocent Iraqis and Americans.
Opponents to a military removal of Saddam have seemingly succeeded in impeding the president's tempo toward the Iraqi tyrant by making constant claims that we need to give Saddam "more time" to comply with U.N. mandates to disarm. They clamor that it will be the United States that will assume the role of Butcher of Baghdad should they "allow" an armed intervention, all the while refusing to acknowledge that the carnage present in Iraq for decades has occurred at the hands of a lunatic that the U.S.-led coalition is now poised to bring to an abrupt end.
Last year Democrats urged Bush to ask Congress for a resolution to use force, and he complied. Congress passed the resolution overwhelmingly in October, likely due in no small part to the fact that elections were around the corner. But despite congressional consent, many Democrats decided their own votes weren't good enough and insisted the president consult the U.N. before moving on Saddam. He complied again, but it still wasn't good enough for those who've known all along that they will never endorse war in Iraq.
The president has tried the diplomatic route. Whether he should have indulged his critics in the first place and risked this U.N. Security Council fiasco is left to debate; it hardly matters now what might have been. But there is no reasonable explanation to continue with this present boondoggle, especially when French President Jacques Chirac has already promised to veto a second Security Council mandate that Saddam disarm.
For his efforts to maintain diplomacy, Mr. Bush is now facing demands from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has attempted to save face with his constituency by introducing six additional demands to be included in a potential second U.N. resolution. Among other things, Britain would require Saddam to renounce publicly his weapons of mass destruction and pledge to destroy banned missiles. Perhaps we could add a swift spanking to that list of gratuitous requirements as well, since Saddam was ostensibly required to destroy banned missiles over a decade ago.
Apparently, after twelve years of defiance, Saddam Hussein is all of a sudden going to voluntarily relinquish his claim over his cache of illegal weapons. Even more incredible is the idea that the world "community" even owes him another chance, or that we would be naïve enough to believe he would comply fully this time. By my rough count, this would be Saddam's last chance to comply with his last chance to comply with his last chance to relinquish his stronghold over Iraq. One might be tempted to think the U.N.'s strategy is to simply wait for Saddam to die of old age, but that would presume that the nations that oppose us actually want to see him dead.
The plain truth of the matter is this: If it requires this much debate to remove a tyrant like Saddam Hussein from power, a man who tortures children in front of their parents, kills them, and then throws them to into the desert to be eaten by dogs, we've reached the point where we really need to take a look at what it's going to take for dissenters in the U.S. and Europe to ever advocate the use of military force. Even if we can't "prove" Saddam Hussein played a direct part in 9/11, I'm fairly sure I'm not going to lose too much sleep knowing the Iraqi people don't need to run scared from him anymore.
That some Democrats like Tom Daschle are now having second thoughts about voting with the rest of the country in support of the use of force in Iraq should lend no credibility to their present queasiness; it should merely indicate that they don't ever belong in the White House.
The antiwar crowd in America and overseas can't fathom the rationality of deposing a murderous tyrant responsible for committing innumerable crimes against humanity, but they'd be the first in line to call for Bush's head if the president offered so much as a smirk upon hearing of the little roughing up John Walker Lindh received in the clink last week.
Mr. President, you have brought a nation together in a just and moral cause thus far; don't be forced by parochial diplomats at home and abroad to wallow in the midst of nations that have everything but our interests in mind.
If Todd Beamer and his fellow patriots were this equivocal on September 11, 2001, Lord only knows how many more casualties this nation would have seen that dreadful day. There's no reason to risk even more when we have the ability to prevent them first.
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