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Posted Sunday, January 19, 2003

Make ethanol, not war

It's not like Saddam Hussein is my favorite person. The 1987 attack on the U.S.S. Stark, 1990 annexation of Kuwait, the treatment of the Kurdish ethnic minority and the Shiite religious minority and the neo-Stalinist supression of civil liberties during his regime all are indications that this man is no saint.

In fact, Saddam is a weasel from way back, and he probably deserves getting an American missile shoved up his hind end as much as anyone.

But this war isn't going to be about that. This is no 1991 Persian Gulf War, and it's no air war over Sarajevo. This war, assuming there is one, will be a nasty, ugly, house-to-house, block-by-block meat grinder of a conflict.

And for what? The inspection process hasn't turned up a thing except some empty shells. You want know why Saddam doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Probably because he has already mailed them all to places like Milwaukee and Omaha by now.

Bush is sqawking about "material breach" of a United Nations resolution from Iraq. But the U.S. violates U.N. mandates every day. Ask President Bush about the Kyoto accord some time. Or some of the resolutions involving Palestine.

No, this effort is nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt to grab 10 percent of the world's oil supply, and the entire world knows it. If we go in and bulldoze Iraq, all we are going to do is get every Islamic extremist in the third world wanting to make America pay.  And when that happens, who actually pays? Some schmuck who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You'll notice none of the Senators or media big shots came down with Anthrax during the mail scare of late 2001. It was the poor, dumb working-class mailroom guys who didn't care about politics that ended up giving their all.

Now, let's go back to the mechanics of how this war would work. If we go in with a big land-based force, then we're up against an army that has had 10 years to get ready for a second round. And this time, they're not defending some lines on a map. They'll be defending their very homes.

I don't know about you, but if some foreign army was trying to fight its way through Fort Madison, I have a Chinese AK-47 knockoff and about 200 rounds sitting about 10 feet from me as I write this this. Although the enemy might take me out in the end, I'm going to make darned sure I take at least a few of the bastards with me. These guys are not going to give up easy. This is their home.

It's not like Kuwait in '91, when a largely conscript army was shipped off to a place nobody really cared much about. We never faced the Republican Guard, the Iraqi version of our Special Forces, Rangers and Marine Corps. They hauled ass before we got there. The folks we fought in 1991 wanted to be there even less than we did.

Oh, and let's not forget the good month-and-a-half we spent bombing the living shit out of them before the ground war started. You throw a few million tons of high explosives down somebody's throat for weeks at a time, and their will to fight is going to be dramatically reduced.

But there again, we're talking about civilian population centers this time. And for all the talk of precision, laser-guided bombs, we managed to make a big mess in '91 and we'd do it again this time.

And don't forget that Saddam has had 10 years to perfect his concrete reinforcement technologies. The government officials are going to be snug in their underground bunkers that make Hitler's hideout look like a cardboard box, while the very people we're supposedly trying to liberate are going to get vaporized like meat in a microwave.

It's a bad deal all around, and there's no reason for it. We're going to get a lot of innocent people killed on both sides, and for what? Yeah, we'll control a big chunk of the oil, but we'll stir up hatreds that our great-great–great-grandchildren will still be dealing with.

You want to know what the solution is? Get out of the Middle East entirely.

We grow enough corn and soybeans in this country that we shouldn't need to import a drop of foreign oil. They say ethanol and soy diesel aren't practical without subsidies. Subsidies? What do you call the trillions of dollars (not to mention the American lives) we're spending on keeping protecting "our interests" in places like Saudi Arabia and Israel?

They say that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East. You know what? Before Israel, we didn't have any enemies in the Middle East.

I say shut our doors them try to figure out what they're going to eat after all they've got is a bunch of worthless oil and no money to buy food with.

And as for Israel, maybe having to live without a fresh supply of American spare parts for their F-15 fighters will teach them to play nice with the neighbors.

So that's why I'm not for this war. It isn't because I like Saddam. He and the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Syria and probably a couple dozen other nations that belong in the "axis of evil" all probably could use a good air-to-ground enema.

But I do care about innocent people, namely folks like you and me and other poor, dumb working joes who raised their right hands and swore to protect the United States -- and ended up protecting Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum and Haliburton.

Count me out of this one. Let the inspections work.