2003 Soap Box Archives

Reasons 03/14/03

There are a lot of opinions floating around about why the United States
is going to war against Iraq.

One of the most popular is that it’s because of oil. Another is
President Bush’s ego. By far the silliest one I’ve heard is that George
W. is wanting revenge for Saddam’s aborted attempt to assassinate George H.

There are people who want to take Saddam at his word that he doesn’t
have weapons of mass destruction. Just bring the troops back home and
leave the whole thing to the United Nations.

There are people who think we should just contain him, although the
containment of North Korea for the last fifty years or so hasn’t worked
too well.

The French and Germans don’t want a war because they are doing business
with Iraq and in all likelihood the French have supplied him with
materials to help him further his weapons program. After all they did
build a nuclear reactor for Saddam back in the eighties which the
Israelis destroyed in the interest of self preservation.

In my humble opinion, there are a lot of reasons for forcing Saddam out
of power, his volatility, his cruelty to his own people, his burning
desire to recreate the Babylonian empire, but there is one equation I
would like to throw into the mix.

Terrorism + weapons of mass destruction = disaster.

Saddam has chemical and biological weapons, you can hang your hat on
it. If we walk away from Iraq leaving him in power what is going to
happen?

Now put your politics aside for a moment and be honest with yourself.
What do you think is going to happen?

Is Saddam going to just sit on those weapons or is he going to start
using them? Is he going to be responsible for the bringing together of
Al Qaeda and a suitcase full of anthrax? He can export terrorism to the
U.S.A. without even one Iraqi having to leave the Middle East. Can we
contain a single suitcase?

Can anybody honestly, honestly now, really believe that if Saddam is
left in power our children would ever be safe in their schools. Could
you ever get on an airplane again and be reasonably certain that you
would reach your destination?

No we are not going into Iraq to kill their children, but to liberate
them. We are not going into Iraq to conquer them but to set them free.
We are not going to war to oppress the Iraqi people but to deliver them
from the oppressor.

We have suffered September 11th. Too many American families have lost
loved ones. Too many daddies and mommies, sisters and brothers will
never be coming home because we waited too late to do something about
Osama Bin Ladin.

I hope and pray that we won’t wait too long to do something about Saddam
Hussein.

At this point in history we have the opportunity to destroy an evil
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Do we destroy them or do they
destroy us?

What do you think?

God Bless America,

Charlie Daniels