Saddam Hussein, no doubt a brutal dictator and aggressor, is clearly a very convenient pretext for Washington’s designs on the Middle East. His rapid transition in August from cherished friend to the new incarnation of Hitler was breathtaking. His villainy was obvious long before that, when the United States blocked a United Nations censure of his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, while remaining his best training partner.

Nor is the reason for the U.S. war in the Middle East simply oil in itself, but control over this vital resource. At a time when the U.S. is losing out economically to Europe and Japan, both far more dependent than we are on Middle East oil, military dominance of the Persian Gulf, with control over the flow and pricing of oil, will assure the U.S. a dominant global role for years and decades to come….

Bush’s lofty rhetoric about America always standing against those who use force to replace the rule of law is blatant and awesome hypocrisy. The reality is that the U.S. has been forced to veto U.N. resolutions condemning the unlawful use of force and Human Rights abuses in Nicaragua, Lebanon, Panama, and El Salvador.

Bush’s hyprocrisy is an insult to the American people, who are not so easily duped. Truth is the first casualty of war. All war is based on deception and the selling of the war to the people is the greatest deception of all. Sally Buckwalter Orland