With oil came money, and with money came power and influence. Money and power allowed them to purchase modern weapons from nations like the Soviet Union to slaughter each other in their endless fighting. This was in vast contrast to the past 1000 years when they had no reach beyond their regions, and killing one another was limited to knives, sticks, and stones. Stone Age wars if you will.

This newfound wealth allowed the construction of legitimate cities and boundaries as well, where the dictators could dominate with national recognition. The USA saw this as troubling, but it is our policy as a nation to not get involved in foreign affairs unless there is a clear and present danger or threat. As even more time passed into the modern era of the 80's, more and more fanatical leaders began to voice their hatred of Western influence over their people. With modern communication such as TV and radio, it is nearly impossible to shut yourself out from Western influence. We have a capitalism driven system that creates competition to produce products authored by the best and the brightest people in the world.  If the world and the majority like something, it is promoted throughout the world for everyone, regardless of what the minority or the leaders think about it.

The fanatical Muslim dictators hated this idea. The constant message from the West was of freedom of spirit, thought, and expression. It promoted competition yet equality between all races and genders, both young and old.  The Mullahs saw how this Western influence had spread throughout Australia, Japan, Eastern Europe, the USSR, and was beginning to creep into the youth of their region of the world. It was a powerful force that rendered the importance of government to secondary and freedom as the most important of all ideals.  When these dictators began to see they were losing control of their people, they began to brutally censor their societies in order regain control. They murdered hundreds of thousands while simultaneously blaming the West for everything. At first, few believed these dictators. But the fear of being put to death by speaking out sealed their lips forever. The children were then indoctrinated in the schools to hate the West. If teachers did not comply with their orders, they were killed as well. 

In the meantime, the USA and the rest of the Western world grew increasingly concerned. The main focus for our concern was Iran and Iraq. At the time, they both hated the West. But Iran hated us for hard-line religious reasons while Iraq was more interested in domination of the region. Because they were not capable of fully dominating the region using conventional military power, we chose the side of Iraq. At the time, Iran was dead-set on destroying the West, by any means necessary. There were terrorist plots that included highjacking and attacks on Christians. Iraq was more focused on personal greed. If they could destroy the West, it would be a bonus, but they first wanted to control the Arab world. The only thing standing in their way was Iran. Again, having to make a choice on who to support, we chose to support Iraq....the lesser of two evils. We gave military support (as did much of the other Western nations) to Saddam Hussein to help him defeat and push back Iran. Our plan worked....Iraq was able to battle Iran to a stalemate and thus the Arab world remained un-united, separate, and therefore weaker than they would be if united.

At the time, we had to make a choice. Saddam Hussein was bad, but Ayatollah Komenei was worse.

A few years later, Saddam Hussein became bold and decided to act on his earlier threats to conquer the Arab world. Acting against world opinion and the UN led by the USA, Iraq invaded Kuwait to gain control of Kuwaits vast oil wealth. The UN knew that Saddam Hussein could not be allowed to control  such a large amount of the resources/fuel of the world, as unfortunately so much of the world’s economy depends on oil. If Saddam controlled the oil, the entire world could be thrown into a massive depression.... effectively destroying the West, giving the Arabs their ultimate wish.

With the power of the US leading the way, the world moved forward to remove Iraq from Kuwait. It was a one-sided victory for the Coalition Forces.  There was a great discussion to whether or not the Coalition should advance on Baghdad and finish the job by removing Saddam. Intelligence warned us that Saddam Hussein had targeted any advancing forces with his chemical weapons and would use them as he did in 1987 where he killed 100,000 of his own people, the Iraqi Kurds. Rather than take that risk of the soldiers lives, as well as a possible civil war that would happen following his removal from power, George Bush Sr. decided to allow Saddam to remain in power and just contain him in the hopes that his defeat would teach him that aggression against his neighbors would be met with a repeat of Operation Desert Storm.

The Coalition allowed Saddam to remain in power on one primary condition.....that he dismantle all of his chemical weapons like the ones he used in 1987 and other weapons of mass destruction. But for the last 12 years, his administration has lied and maneuvered to build even more advanced weapons of mass destruction. He was even so bold as to make a public statement that he planned to conquer the Arab world.

Now while he claims that he does not have weapons and the incredibly nieve average person in the world believes him on his word, (for reasons that I cannot possibly understand....only mental illness can explain it) vast amounts of intelligence by the professional spy agencies such as the CIA in the US and the MI5 in the UK claim hard evidence to the contrary. These are just two of the dozens of international spy agencies who put forth this evidence against him. Every developed Western and Arab nation agrees via their own intelligence agencies that he has been lying for the past 12 years and is an increasing danger to life on Earth.

Now one must understand the purpose of the intelligence/spy agencies. Their sole function is to gather information and covertly thwart plots against the safety and security of the free world. Their end goal is to benefit the people of their respective nations. How they reach their end goal, however, is a different story. "By any means necessary" is the motto of the average spy agency. How they accomplish their goals is only truly known by the agencies themselves, but it is basically common knowledge that they are basically above the law.

They use money to implant their spies into the most inner-realms of dictators like Saddam Hussein. They pay people to turn over secret documents or use them as informants to the location of Saddam and others like him at all times. They are the ones who know all and see all...knowing things that you and I could not even imagine. They are the "fly on the wall" using ultra-high technology to intercept secret conversations between evil leaders and their minions or pay Saddams mistress to get him drunk so that he might brag to her his plans....only for her to tape their conversation and pass it to his closest guards who are secretly working for us. It is these hundreds of men and women, dedicated to their respective nations that gives us the knowledge of which we act on today.

Saddam is highly paranoid because of these facts. He is known to routinely and almost randomly kill people closest to him out of fear that they might be a spy. Sometimes he is correct....but usually he is wrong. This is why everyone fears him and why the only people he really trusts is his 2 sons. At one point, Saddams elder son killed Saddams best friend because there was suspicion that he betrayed Saddam. Suspicion.

So as it goes, we have a cruel and paranoid dictator in power that has continued to defy the entire world by his material breech of his promise to disarm. Every major world leader understands the threat and has the same intelligence gathered by the spy agencies as it was shared during the UN Security Council debates. The differences in the voting are due to political reasons. Some countries publicly are against the war out of fear. These countries have large and violent Muslim populations that already cause them enough problems. They fear that any support of the USA will only enflame these Muslims into even greater acts of violence against their citizens and their government. But note that many of these countries who publicly denounce the war are some of the greatest supporters of the USA.

Other countries like France have purely political reasons for standing against the USA. France is a disgusting and largely irrelevant nation with far greater world influence than it deserves due to its permanent UN Security Council veto power. Its educated population is shrinking and it was recently ranked last on the list of average intelligence per capita for developed nations. France is grasping for power and influence out of desperation. It greatly resents the USA and our continuing dominance of world events. France knows that it can never repay the sacrifice our soldiers made back in World War II when the Nazis nearly burned Paris to the ground. Thousands of US soldiers gave their lives so that France would be free of Nazi control. Much of what you see of the actions of France is due to a dangerous sense of false pride.

France is also being over-run by the Arab world due to their left-wing social policies. However these liberal policies are causing painful erosion of the economy of France, as well as their decreasing social morals and rapidly increasing crime rate. France is devolving from an important nation into a third world nation and it knows that it is doomed.

Contrary to popular belief, the terrorism phenomenon is not delegated to acts of the poor and desperate in the world. Most effective and dangerous terrorists are both well financed and highly educated. Many of these men come from very wealthy families and were educated at some of the finest Universities in the United States. Often they are highly intelligent and articulate due to their extensive training in literature and engineering.  Most people who know them describe them as polite and quiet, as in the case of the September 11th high-jackers. These men, for example, spent over 2 years studying, partying, and otherwise training in the USA to commit the most infamous act of terrorism in modern history. Again, they came from privileged backgrounds and lived in relative comfort here in the USA. But their hatred for the Western world and its culture consumed them to the point that they were unmoved in their desire to murder as many people as they possibly could.

And so it goes that much of money given to these terrorists comes from regimes like Saddam Hussein. Again, all of the CIA, MI5, NSA, etc intelligence directly links Saddam Hussein to terrorism. After all, what is easier? Publicly and directly carry out terrorism against the people of the world to weaken their economies and therefore their influence, or donate huge amounts of money to terrorism groups to do your dirty work for you? Under interrogation, many groups like the Abu Sayaff in the southern Philippines have even admitted that they get much of their funding to commit terrorism from Iraq.

The formula in Saddams mind is this: If you give money to terrorists, they will kill hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. Because terrorists are not officially part of a secular government like Iraq, no nation can accept absolute blame for their actions and thus are relatively safe. If Iraq directly attacked New York City and killed thousands of innocent citizens, the United States would respond within hours with 10 nuclear weapons on downtown Baghdad, turning the entire landscape into a literal sheet of glass. Saddam knows that he is no match for the West, and he is not stupid. Again, he will therefore use people to do his dirty work that cannot be publicly linked to him and use world emotions and opinion to protect him.

What is his goal? The death of all of these innocent people and the fear he creates will weaken the world’s economy and cause powerful nations like the USA to become isolationists. Our military would be withdrawn from remote locations around the world to be delegated to defending the boarders with the goal of preventing further terrorism. This action by the powerful nations of the world will give Saddam Hussein free reign to conquer the Middle East with nobody to stand in his way.

One thing to note: Saddam Hussein also knows that we do not need the oil in the Middle East. Strategy and politics prevents us here in the USA from tapping into the vast oil reserves off the coasts of Florida and California, as well as the oil in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. There is oil in Mexico and Canada as well. If attacked on a massive scale, Saddams goal is that we give up our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and isolate ourselves using our own resources. Sure, he loses all of the revenue he would gain if he sold oil to the USA, but he still has customers in Europe and Africa. If he conquered the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and possibly China would be at his mercy. Selling to these nations further enables him to run his war machine and expand his control into Africa and Europe. He would probably not challenge India or Russia, but he would roll over Europe and any Middle Eastern nation that would stand in his way.

Again, the current war is the result of the buildup of aggressions from the Arab world against the West. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of either terrorist acts or attempted terrorism. Almost every nation of the world has some role. There are at least 40 nations that support the war, either with actual troops, or other forms of support. It is not a unilateral effort as the left-wing media would like you to believe.

Some of the successful and thwarted terrorist acts so far:
1983: Beirut bombing kills 241 Marines
1993: 1st World Trade Center Bombing
1995: Thwarted - Massive plot to blow up at least 12 Northwest Airlines jets originating from the Philippines over the Pacific ocean and fly a jet full of nerve gas into the CIA.
1998: US Embassy bombings in Africa kill 200, wound 5000
2001: September 11th....over 3000 people killed in New York and Washington DC

As a nation, we learned that appeasement does not work. Those who tried to appease Hitler following World War I learned a painful lesson during World War II with millions of Jews murdered and hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed on both sides....all because we tried to appease a dictator. 

Appeasement caused the death of millions of Russians due to Stalin, millions dead due to Pol Pot in Cambodia, and millions more due to the clear and present danger of Saddam Hussein.  As people who love freedom, we have learned these horrible lessons from history and God has blessed us with leaders who understand that this evil cannot continue if the human race itself is allowed to continue.  Pseudo-intellectuals will try to convince you to value moral relativism where there is no such thing as right and wrong. The true leaders and intellectuals of the world see evil for what it is and know that you must take a stand for what is good and what is right. The path of the righteous is clear and we will not falter on our path to protect the people of the world. I thank God for his blessings in delivering President Bush, Colin Powell, and the other good and just men and women leading our world today.

Amen.