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War is certain
By Joe Palmersheim
Published:
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Joe Palmersheim -- Staff Column
I think the world is going to hell in a hand-basket faster than one can say hand-basket. Negative world view? Perhaps, but reading the paper in the morning leaves me no other choice.
Between the economic have-nots at home and the threat of war looming on all horizons, there really isn't much to relax this sense of worry that festers in my brain like a tumor. I guess it's times like these that make a person appreciate the truly important things in life: air to breathe, clean drinking water and a good sharp stick to protect the clean drinking water from the zombie neighbors after they drop the big one.
All joking aside, the situation we find ourselves in worries me, not only for the current repercussions but for its effects down the road.
For example, we face the prospect of going to war in two places at once and making the world disapprove of our actions. It seems that every time someone makes the observation that the U.S. is going too far with its actions and cowboy rhetoric, the rhetoric only gets tougher.
Also, I love how everyone, especially the media, is still pretending that there might not be a war with Iraq. Wake up! This war is as certain as anything else.
Nothing short of Saddam Hussein's death and a magical overnight Westernization of Iraq will stop that. The harder I look at it, the more the point becomes clear: this war is on, and will proceed regardless of what the people of this country or the citizens of the rest of the world think.
Note the strong reaction that this war has provoked in both our allies and enemies alike. In a Times/CBS poll that was published in the Jan. 24 issue of the Star-Tribune, two-thirds of those polled said they wanted Bush to find a diplomatic solution for this Iraq situation.
Also in this same survey, 63 percent of those surveyed said that the nation was worse off than it was five years ago. Apparently, I'm not alone in my negativity.
This war isn't about the Iraqi people, this war is about many other things all at once. One is oil. Anyone who disagrees with me on that can look at Bush's past history as an oil man. This country needs oil. All of those SUVs can't run by themselves, can they? We can boost our economy by war and solve our oil worries at the same time.
Another thing that I think is funny is that Saddam Hussein is the most evil man on the planet, when other regimes are committing the same crimes. These regimes, however, have proven themselves useful for the moment and we turn our heads in the other way.
But Saddam tried to kill Bush's dad. Now that makes it all reasonable. Think of all the people our country has killed in the name of democracy and all of those who have suffered the effects of governmental overthrow in the name of American interest. Guess we don't like the shoe on the other foot, huh?
It's hard to keep an optimistic outlook in these days and times, but I'm trying. Some days are harder than others, and I guess this is one of those days. I'm going back to bed.
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