good morning,

after reading the string of e-mails concerning war on iraq, i am amazed at
the tendency of people to believe whatever their government tells them. it
seems that we would have learned our lesson after the vietnam debacle, but,
alas, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
the idea that this war is being fought out of humanitarian concern for the
iraqi people is simply absurd. your first clue should have been that it was
the last reason proffered by the bush regime, when all their other
allegations had been proven false or distorted. let's review:
first, our leaders presented us, and the un, with a report that they said
was the result of extensive intelligence work, which catalogued all the
wmds in iraq's possession. it turned out to be a 1991 graduate thesis
written by a college student. to add insult to injury, our people
plagiarized it, even leaving in all the original typos, without attributing
authorship. obviously, a report that was written before the first round of
inspections is, to say the least, obsolete. what happened here? your
president looked you in the eye and lied to you.

next came the documents purporting to show that iraq had been purchasing
weapons grade uranium from Niger in Africa. our leaders presented these
documents to the un, the international atomic energy association, and the
american people as proof of saddam's evil designs. upon inspection, they
turned out to be not only forgeries, but pathetically crude, childish
forgeries that, as the iaea inspectors stated, should not have fooled
anyone, especially the cia. they were not designed to fool the
knowledgeable people at the un and the iaea. they were designed to fool a
credulous american public.
last, but not least, our leaders paraded the testimony of a high ranking
iraqi defector, and son-in-law of saddam, kamal hussein, in which he
described all the weapons of mass destruction in iraq's inventory. what
your leaders did not think was important for you to know was that kamal
also claimed that all the wmds had been destroyed. we historians call this
selective use of sources.
your president went on national tv, insinuated that hussein not only has
ties to al-queda, but that he was behind the 9/11 wtc attack, and claimed
that iraq has unmanned drones capable of reaching th u.s. with wmds. none
of these things are true. they are all lies concocted to persuade a
reluctant american public to allow the repudiation of all international
laws and conventions, as well as our most cherished values of decency and
fair play, and engage in a war of aggression against another sovereign state.
the above mentioned lies and distortions comprise the entire case your
government made for making war on iraq. i may not be a genius, but i know
when someone is peeing on me and telling me it's raining.
it was only after all of this had failed to rally the american people to
their side that the bush regime began talking of humanitarian concerns. as
many of us said at the time, "shouldn't this have been your first reason
for war and not your last?" iraq is only one of many brutal regimes in this
world who regularly oppress and abuse their populations. many, like saudi
arabia and indonesia, we call "ally" and others, like china, we
meticulously side-step any criticism of because they are to important a
trading partner and they have armed forces that pose a much more potent
threat than the third world nations we have been picking on. need i remind
you that while we warred against milosovic in kosovo, claiming that he had
abused thousands of people, the hutus in rwanda were committing genocide
against 800,000 tutsis! where in hell were our humanitarian concerns then?
the fact is that a group of truly unscrupulous people have used your fear
and outrage stemming from the wtc attack to push forward an agenda that has
everything to do with oil and their wealth, and nothing to do with the war
on terrorism or your safety and security. they have taken resources that
should have been used to strengthen american defenses against terrorism and
used them to further their own interests, leaving the american people
vulnerable to more terrorist attacks.
but, don't take my word for it. go and do the research yourself.
Harry M. Hays
History Dept.

The wars are long, the peace is frail
the madmen come again
there is no freedom in our land
where fear and hate prevail
isn't this a terrible time?
-The Weavers-