To: The Dallas Morning News
Date:  February 19, 2001
Subject: Saddam, missiles, and rogue nations
Result: not printed due to limited space

Dear Editor,

The Iraqis fly in the no-fly zone within their country, and we undertake a "routine mission" to punish them with bombs. 

I'll tell you something about Saddam Hussein. Even if you could blow up every suspicious facility in his country, how could anybody imagine that he would therefore be rendered impotent? Saddam has a lot of friends, and a lot of money to pay them with for whatever he wants - including, perhaps, even missile bases on somebody else's less conspicuous territory. Certainly he is actively supporting any anti-American activity he can find anywhere. 

The reason I am against spending $60 billion on an anti-missile system (not counting the cost overruns for the difficult technology) is because, number one, it seems to me it would be very difficult for somebody to even build a missile facility within one of the "rogue nations". With as much monitoring capability as we have just from satellites in the sky, it seems we would have plenty of forewarning to blow it up long before it was ready to be put into action. Iraq couldn't even hide their improved plane-tracking equipment from us that we blew up.

But beyond that, it's just because Saddam could pay somebody to put a bomb in a truck or a suitcase, which would be a lot easier than firing a missile at us. You know that's going to happen someday, by the way. It's just a question of when. Look at all the nuclear materials that have been stolen over the last few years. Who do you think is buying it, and for what? Our high-tech anti-missile system will be useless against that. 

As a matter of fact, as I think about people blowing up cites with bombs hidden in suitcases and trucks, it occurs to me that Dallas might be perceived as a very attractive target by one of those guys who is just itching to become a martyr "for Allah". 

One statement made by the Bush administration was that the value of the targets that were selected in Iraq was partly attributed to their location away from populated areas. That is, from areas that were not too well-populated. It's okay if only a few innocent people get killed or maimed while we protect our "interests". 

Meanwhile, all this makes me think of Cuba. A country that we just fined $90 million dollars or something because it shot down hostile aircraft penetrating its air space. What for us is a "routine mission" to protect and make statements and teach lessons about our "interests", for Cuba is a criminal offence. It's just one more instance of our abrasive, self-righteous aggression in the world, that someday could come back to haunt us. And, of course, our children. 

Concerning what I call "self-righteousness", after all, it's not like we ourselves do not have a long history of brutality against others, in the things we have done and supported. Starting when we first came to this continent and destroyed whole civilizations, and going up to the many evil dictators we have supported in the last 50 years because they served our "interests". We have no moral basis whatever for our policies and actions, for example, against Cuba. 

Far from accomplishing anything positive in our aggressive actions - whether it be, currently, firing bombs on Iraq or building an anti-missile system - all we do is needlessly antagonize people, friend and foe alike, and waste our valuable resources. Come on, President Bush, don't be such a cowboy.

Finally, as for Kuwait, in whose behalf we fought the Persian Gulf War in the first place, I can't see how it has done us any good at all that we saved them by "defeating" Iraq. It looks to me like we just protected a few rich old sheiks, and their young, swinging children, who sponge up the oil wealth of their countries just like all the other leaders in the Middle East. The great price we paid for that "victory" certainly hasn't done us any good at the gas pumps. 

Thank you, John Vehon