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As the 101st Airborne Division moves into the Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, war in Iraq seems all but inevitable. Saddam Hussein has Uncle Sam at his throat, and one small flinch by the Iraqi dictator could spell trouble not only for his regime, but for the war-weary people of Iraq. Many Political commentators have now conceded that it is only a question of when, not if, and it seems that the President has already made up his mind to push forward. The President's mind may be made up, but he faces an extremely divided American Public, a skeptical Europe, and an even more skeptical South Asia. Exactly one year ago, President Bush stated eloquently in his State of the Union Address that he would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them. At the time, I thought he would be sincere and focused in prosecuting the war on terrorism and on the verge of a major foreign policy success. Today, I cannot help but to laugh at the thought that this man is the leader of the free world.

Being a pragmatist, I waited until Colin Powell went before the UN Security Council before I formed any concrete opinion on the Iraq issue. After watching all 90 minutes of Powell's presentation, I saw expert after expert claim that the President had "effectively made the case." Photographs of trucks may be convincing to the average middle American. However, I failed to see any concrete clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. Frankly, the only reasonable facts that Colin Powell proved were that the Iraqis were decieving the Inspectors, and that the administration is good at the art of spewing rhetoric. To those who argue that this constitutes a "material breach" of Resolution 1441 of the UN Security Council, I ask one relevant question. If the administration can produce such "revealing" evidence of Iraqi weapons programs, why can't they give such information to the inspectors and let them do their duty? The answer is probably that the administration has no real interest in pursuing the inspections process or peace at all. This can be ascertained by several irregularities in Powell's case.

It is important to notice that the photographs Secretary Powell provided demonstrating the existence of Iraqi weapons programs were taken in April and May of 2002, long before the Iraq crisis became a hot topic. Additional sources were quoted from as far back as 1995, when a full scale inspections regime was already on the ground in Baghdad. Such evidence fails to demonstrate a new and imminent danger to our national security. Furthermore, even the newest of evidence is irrelevant when former chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter comments that weapons inspections alone between 1992 and 1998 destroyed more weapons of mass destruction than Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox combined. Secretary Powell also attempted to make the case that Iraq was in cohorts with Al Qaida. The "evidence" was at best shady and utterly failed to demonstrate that Iraq actively sponsored and abbetted the Al Qaida network with any form of arms or training. Even top Generals in the Armed Forces indicated that Powell was "skating on thin ice." Immediately after the presentation, the FBI, the CIA, and British Intelligence all published evidence refuting Powell's claims. Furthermore, the British Government admitted openly that some evidence was fabricated. Thus, where is the indicting "evidence," if it even deserves to be called evidence? When the absence of indicting evidence was clear in the Security Council, Secretary Powell chose to swtich to the use of rhetoric. Such rhetoric not only indicted Iraq, but the entire International Community itself.

From the outset, Secretary Powell warned the Security Council that "this body risks irrelevance" if the threat from Iraq was ignored. Since when did one nation possess the authority to render the international community as irrelevant? When one examines U.S. behavior vis-a-vis the International Community during the ongoing Iraq crisis, a pattern emerges. First, President Bush browbeats the International Community into adopting the Iraq issue in the UN Security Council, at the cost of the current war on terrorism. Second, President Bush publicly talks about "Regime Change" in Iraq. Next, Next, President Bush threatens France, Germany, and Russia that they can "forget about international aid" if they refuse to get on board with the United States. Finally, President Bush comes before the American People and states that Saddam's forces are raping women and killing innocent children. Now, anyone with background on International Relations can tell that the President has no case, and is switching his argument by the hour to justify war. The absence of an imminent danger and the administration's ever-so-virulent rhetoric have proved terribly unconvincing. If the President thinks that Saddam's forces raping women and killing children can convince me to support a war in Iraq, he is gravely mistaken. My people, after all, have been subject to the same gross treatment from Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in Kashmir, and Bush's attitude towards that issue is to award more than $3 Billion in assistance to one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism in the world.

After I discuss the outstanding issue of Iraq with my peers, I am often called unpatriotic. My response is simply that I cannot trust a commander-in-chief who himself stated that "Africa is a nation that suffers from immense poverty," "Kosovians can move back in," "Keep good relations with the Grecians," and "We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the Pacemakers." Perhaps we Americans should shed our superiority complex and learn to be global players. Then, it is possible that the world can collectively tackle a serious threat to global security. Whether this will happen in our lifetime remains to be seen.

"We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile, or hold our allies hostile."-G.W. Bush

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