I couldn't agree more with your assessment of Saddam's pathetically weak America-attacking capabilities, GUEST. This situation is even more ludicrous than Hitler's preinvasion propaganda about the dire threat that Poland supposedly represented to peace-loving Germans in 1939!

Consider...

1. Poland was much weaker than Germany, but not nearly so much weaker as Iraq is vis-a-vis the USA.

2. Poland was actually occupying a fair bit of land that had been German territory for some time prior to the 1st World War. Iraq is occupying no foreign land whatsoever at this point, and most certainly no American land.

3. Germany did not have the exquisite advantage of denying Poland the use of 2/3 of its own airspace and subjecting them to frequent bombings and economic starvation for 10 years prior to the main event.

4. Germany did not have the even more exquisite advantage of pre-inspecting all of Poland's defences and strategic materials on the ground and from the air, prior to launching a full scale invasion.

And the USA thinks it has the right to do this crazy stuff!

It's so amazing, you'd think it was a fiction...a novel. This is nerve. Colossal, incredible nerve. This is a rogue superpower that doesn't give a damn what the rest of the World thinks, because it feels it is above the rest of the World.

Hitler arranged a false Polish attack on Germany in the last hours before the panzers rolled. I think Bush has already arranged a few "incidents", in order to garner support at home and abroad, but I doubt that he is through doing so. I shudder to think what he will do next, if public support isn't there in the USA when the time comes.

The lesson all dictators use to their gain is this: You can motivate people through three powerful negative emotions...greed, hatred, and fear. Most of all, FEAR. Couple them with patriotism, and you've got a mad dog on your hands.

- LH