Saddam must be be disarmed
I wanted to take this opportunity to comment on James Clark’s column in the Jan. 24 edition of the Standard. I support the Bush Administration’s policy on Iraq. Saddam Hussein is an evil man. That alone does not justify going to war, for there are more than a few evil tyrants in power around the world for whom military action involving the United States is not on the horizon.
Consider his history. He has already demonstrated he is willing and able to attack his neighbors and use chemical weapons on his own people. The evidence is overwhelming that his is a regime that practices murder, torture and rape of innocent men, women and children – not as something unusual, but as a tool of policy.
To always attempt to create moral equivalence between the United States and the worst of the worst in the world leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and I think in the mouths of a lot of other Americans as well.
U.N. Resolution 1441 is plain in saying it is up to Saddam Hussein to disarm and to tell the inspectors where his weapons of mass destruction are – weapons we know he had in his possession the last time the U.N. had inspectors there.
It is not up to the United States, its allies, or the U.N. to prove anything. That is a fact. Even Mr. Hans Blix, the head of the inspection effort, and no war hawk, has been pretty plain in the last few weeks in saying Iraq is not complying with the resolution. This cat-and-mouse game has gone on for the better part of 11 years and it has simply got to stop.
As for our “ally” France, the problem the French have is they are, I think, secretly ashamed of their own detestable history of surrender to, and collaboration with, the Nazi murder machine that conquered them in a month’s time, and they would like for the United States to be like them.
That will not happen because, like it or not, the United States is the leader of the free world and the world’s only superpower. Although that may cause heartburn for some, it causes me great pride.
Paul W. Farley
204 S. High Street
McMinnville