2002-10-08 2:15 p.m. I swear to sweet Jeebus, one of these days the frustration will cause my head to pop clean off. "Old bloody stump Mike", that's what the kids will call me. Oh, I still walk around and lead my life. I'll just be a headless, aimless, hopeless amalgamation of blind rage. The latest straw on this camel's back? Susan Reimer of The Baltimore Sun. I don't know where you live, but I do know that you have a columnist like Reimer. She's the soccer Mom columnist. You know the type; they write about schools or kids or kids in school, or Oprah. Or the Farmer's Market. You know what subject area they should know to stay out of? The finer points of international diplomacy. I know, it seems quite obvious to you and I. Reimer? Not so much. In today's gem of a piece, Reimer takes on the quite-likely war with Iraq. Or, more accurately, she takes to task the Administration's stance that such a war is necessary. It's a tired little column, a lazy piece, but it makes me mad all the same. It makes me mad, because she speaks with such an air of authority. As if she's in the know. And I shudder to think that all the soccer moms with lazy it-must-be-right-'cause-I-read-it-in-the-paper mindsets are swallowing this hook, line, and Reimer. Where was I when Saddam Hussein replaced Osama bin Laden as the greatest threat to the United States? Did I miss the news that day? Something changed between last Sept. 11 and this Sept 11, and, for the life of me, I can't figure out what. Yeah Susan, something sure has changed in the last year. Where have you been? What's changed is that Americans no longer see the Atlantic or Pacific as some kind of impenetrable barrier that keeps us safe in our sleep. We know that instability and danger anywhere in the world mean instability and danger everywhere in the world. No one's saying that it's time to forget Osama and focus solely on Saddam. It's just that we have one enemy we can't find and one enemy we can see crystal clear. We're not choosing one over the other. We're gunning for both. Saddam Hussein has been a back-burner irritant for more than a decade. Did I miss the headlines? Did he suddenly score the missing ingredients of his weapons of mass destruction? What is different now? Again, where have you been? What's different now is the existence of political capital and the will to deal with the problem. A "back-burner irritant for more than a decade"? I guess the 1st President Bush went to war with Iraq because he was irritated by him. I guess the air strikes that were ordered by President Clinton (and supported by many of the same Congresspeople that now oppose war) were because Saddam annoyed the U.S. Well, no. Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world in 1991 and continues to be in 2002. It sure is irritating when the leader of a sovereign nation attempts the mass execution of his citizens, isn't it? I *hate* it when that happens. Doesn't it really get on your nerves when someone lobs Scuds at Jerusalem? Me TOO! Hussein has made no overt threats to the United States in the last decade. There is no credible evidence tying him to Sept. 11. Oh, there's some winning logic for you. The psycho(s) driving around Maryland killing people with a sniper rifle made no overt threats to their victims; yet by Reimer's reasoning, if the police had found them sitting outside a school with a high powered rifle, there should be no cause for concern because there's no credible evidence that they'd want to hurt anyone. Riiiiight. And good ol' Adolf was building all those showers because he just wanted to make sure the German Jews got a nice bath. All we have right now is the Bush administration's Johnnie Cochran, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, arguing mightily in the court of U.S. and world opinion that it is legal and time for us to take pre-emptive military action against a sovereign country and remove its head - action we would never tolerate from the Soviets or the Chinese. Actually, that's not quite fair. To my knowledge, neither the Soviets or the Chinese ever tried to oust a geno-homocidal madman and replace him with the legitimately elected ruler of a democratic republic. But could I be wrong about that? (Answer: No.) Also, "the Bush administration's Johnny Cochran"? Umm, what? Does that make the Administration OJ? And does that make the case for war a highly publicized and racially charged water cooler debate? Who's Lance Ito? Kofi Annan? The American People? I'm so confused. Also, my head hurts. We are told that removing Hussein is the first step in a grand plan to reform and stabilize a region. But when the president tells a Houston audience, "This is a guy who tried to kill my dad," it sounds like we are settling old scores. For once I agree with her. It does sound like we're trying to settle old scores. But what's wrong with that? Saddam Hussein has tried to kill our brothers and our uncles. He will try again. If you change "settle old scores" to "righting old wrongs", things take on a whole new light, don't they? If the lesson of 9/11 is that Americans are vulnerable even on American soil, then I begin to understand that we cannot wait to see what Saddam Hussein does next. If the lesson of 9/11 is that the United States cannot guarantee the safety of its citizens inside its borders, and therefore cannot allow rogue nations to acquire weapons any more potent than a slingshot, then that is the case the administration should make to us and to the world. And it *is* the case the administration's making. I can't help but feel like Reimer hasn't been reading her own paper or watching the news for the last month. It's like she thinks the folks in the White House are banging on their mahogany conference tables screaming "WAAAAAAAR!!!" and then breaking for a lunch of red meat and seal clubbing. One of the most basic realization these days is that no one's safe anywhere at any time. Period. Look at the Taliban's Afghanistan. Look at what they managed to do us with no weapons whatsoever. I shudder to think what Saddam could do with a slingshot. I don't want to give him the chance. President Bush has said time and time again that Iraq is building it's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Is it wise to wait until that stockpile is full and then see what happens? Instead of trying to convince us that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have joined forces, or that one is a more urgent threat than the other, the president should tell the American people the truth: That we have learned that the only way to protect ourselves against an enemy is to behead him before he can raise his fist. Yes, yes, yes, YES! The problem with the alternative is that in these days of backpack nukes, biological weapons enclosed in cans of AquaNet and the use of airliners as cruise missiles, we can't be certain we'll see the fist being raised. We certainly didn't on September the 11th. Make no mistake, a proactive approach will cost lives. No one's trying to pretend otherwise. But the fact of the matter is that Saddam Hussein has had 11 years to convince the world that he has neither the will or the means to become a factory of terror. He has failed. So many people are asking us to trust the man. Democrats in Congress, newspaper columnists, Hollywood celebrities. Trust that Saddam bears no ill will and wants to be a productive member of the world community. President Bush said that he doesn't want to risk one life in trusting Saddam. I couldn't agree more starongly. Susan Reimer's opinion would be justified if the President and his administration had not made the case time and again on the need for action in Iraq. She'd have justification if Iraq had granted total access to weapons inspectors. She'd have justification if intelligence didn't indicate that Iraq was trying to buy, borrow, or steal the components of a nuclear weapon. But, she ignores all those things, as if they weren't there or hadn't happened. She doesn't once mention the President's speech last night where his remarks would have countered all of her arguments. It's like she didn't even know it was on. Heck, maybe she was watching CBS. downtown----uptown leave me a note, fool!

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