It is the habit of out-of-control aggressors with great war plans to accuse someone else of their very own sins...thus rhetoric such as "the Axis of Evil" gets bandied about by Mr Bush. In recent history, only the Nazis had this much gall. The true Axis of Evil is located in Washington and London, and its special shock battalions (who will be sacrificed as soon as they are no longer needed by the Axis) are, I think, based in Israel...professional high-tech holy warriors and zealouts, prepared to do whatever severe policing and quick, deadly military strikes are required on their disorganized and rather pathetic neighbours on all sides, the Muslims in the Middle East.

To imagine that Saddam Hussein is capable of any real threat to the USA is as irrational as it was to imagine in 1939 that Poland was a real threat to Germany and East Prussia. And yet, Hitler was able to convince a majorityu of Germans that that was the case. He also made sure to arrange a phony "incident" of an attack on a German radio station just before the Panzers poured across Poland's borders, using Eastern European prisoners who were dressed in Polish uniforms and shot.

The situation is much the same now, only it's even more bizarre. The US government has repeatedly announced its deliberate intention to attack a small nation...a nation which it has already devastated once...a nation which would not have a chance against American weaponry...a nation which cannot fly airplanes in over half of its own airspace, but must submit to daily overflights and bombings by foreign aircraft of Britain and America...a nation which has been deliberately starved for over ten years by Britain and America...a nation which is accused of doing something "wrong" when it fires a missile at a foreign airplane in defense of its own airspace.

Since the USA is unable to prove much of anything except that Saddam Hussein doesn't like or trust America (I wonder why??!), they say that he must be prevented from developing into a threat in some unforseeable future. Amazing! Who, when under continuous threat and open attack from outside, does not have the absolute right to arm himself with weapons of any sort, including weapons of "mass destruction" and defend himself? Who?

How would the USA feel if 2/3 of its airspace were denied to its own airplanes, and if it were bombed on a daily basis by a foreign alliance, and if a foreign power was openly planning to attack it next with a fullscale invasion (having labelled it as a "rogue nation" to justify the action). How would the USA feel if foreign governments made statements to the effect that "one bullet" (aimed at their head of state) could "solve the problem"?

Where does America get the gall to think that it is "good" and other nations are "evil", when it is America that is openly planning to launch a preemptive strike on a country with 1/50th of America's military strength?

This is collosal gall. It is collosal hubris and arrogance. Or it's desperation... I wonder if the American economy is already so fatally crippled by the last 40 years of shipping civilian jobs overseas that this war is seen as the only way to keep the American people from noticing that their own ship of state is sinking under them?

If there is another terrorist attack, it will not be arranged by Mr Hussein...most certainly not! It will be arranged by the people who want this war, and must maintain some public support stateside in order to launch it.

Remember Osama Bin-What's-his-name? What a joke! They must think that people have an amazingly short attention span out there, the way the "bad guys" have their five or ten minutes of fame before the next excuse, the next "face", is trotted out for the North American press to obsess upon!

Afghanistan was America's "adventure in Spain" (see Germany's role in the Spanish Civil War...late 30's). Iraq, if the war goes ahead, will be America's "adventure in Poland". When Hitler attacked Poland in 1939 he had no conception that Britain and France would declare war on Germany over it. He thought they would merely grumble, and then swallow it as an accomplished fact. He was wrong.

Bush may also be wrong about his adventure in Iraq, and America and Britain may find themselves sliding into a growing regional and finally a global catastrophe.

When major powers are so arrogant that they think they can openly plan the invasion and conquest of small countries anywhere and anytime they wish, just because they find it convenient, then those major powers sooner or later make themselves...international pariahs. And they force many other people finally to fight them.

The loyalty of conventional Americans to this so-called "War on Terrorism" is quite understandable to any student of German history between 1933 and 1945. Consider Adolf Galland (one of the great German fighter aces of WWII). He was a brave and intelligent man of very good character, as has been noted by both his fellow servicemen and the Allied pilots he flew against. He had grown up in Germany, was a military career officer, and had full faith in the German system and the German government and the Nazi high command. He never doubted that Germany's wars were justified, given the virulent propaganda he was daily exposed to. He loyally served that Nazi command from Spain in 1937 through the final collapse and surrender in 1945, and shot down scores of Allied aircraft. His belief in his government was not shaken until late on, when the war was irretrievably lost, and the growing madness or incompetence of his own top commanders (Hitler and Goering) was becoming painfully evident. By then, it was too late.

He was caught up in the grand illusion of country, flag, loyalty, and duty. So were millions of other Germans like him. And most of them were not stupid people by any means.

So it doesn't surprise me in the least that many Americans fall for this incredible line of BS that is spouted daily by the Bush administration. Nope. What will surprise me is if a majority of Americans see through it. Pretty well everyone else in the World has already seen through it (including the British population)...pretty well everyone except the Israelis. They are so convinced of their own historical "victimhood" at this point (while horrendously victimizing others) that I don't think anything will suffice to turn them from the disastrous course they have embarked upon. They are willing warriors for America, no matter what America does.

It was that very sense of "victimhood" that gave Hitler the rage to tap on in the German population in the 20's and 30's which allowed him to build first a party, then a government, then the World's greatest (at the time) military machine, and finally...utter catastrophe.

Do not be deluded by the fact that some of the people Bush points his finger at are dictators. Hitler fought against some dictators too, and it was just a case of the pot calling the kettle black, when the pot was itself blacker than midnight.

It's September 1939, folks. The Stukas are warming up on the runways, the Heinkels have their bombs ready and loaded, the Panzer divisions are poised on the indefensible borders, the Kriegsmarine is assembling off the coastal waters, the professional trained killers and the innocent young warriors of the World's greatest military power have been despatched to their initial launch zones. The rest of the World is expected to grimace, hold their noses, and stand aside while the big blitzkrieg does whatever the hell it pleases and smashes one more small country. And after that? Iran?

The only question is, will the rest of the World stand aside? Or will they stand up and say NO! Or will they fight? And if not now, when?

I regret to say that my country, Canada, will inevitably be drawn in by geographical factors to tacitly or actively support the new blitzkrieg, just as Finland was when it Allied itself with Germany in World War II, and will find itself allied with the great Anglo-American blitzkrieg machine, the New World Order, regardless of what its people say. We are a captive population. I kid you not. And no one has been able to figure out what to do about it, because our political system is presently unwilling to reflect the actual will of its people...just like Mr Blair's government is. That's why I say: we are a captive population. No democracy here...just the pretence of it. Just the memory of what once was.

The opposition to Mr Bush's planned war is tremendous in this country, but our government doesn't speak for its people.

- LH