December 6th, 2002

Enough!


Enough.

It's time to remove Saddam Hussein, so I'm saying...

Enough.

I'm tired of waiting for what we know has to happen. I'm getting sick of the excuses, regardless of who gives them. Sick of capitulations. Sick of one more last chance. Sick and tired of being sick and tired of waiting for someone on high to say...

Enough.

No more of this ridiculous pantomime with arms inspectors delaying what should be inevitable. No more dancing around with the UN, Europe, Russia or anyone else who can't see that Saddam Hussein is a menace, both to his own people and his neighbors, and needs to be removed.

Enough.

No more talk. No more parleying. No more wagging a finger when he shoots at our jets and our boats, lies about his capabilities and makes threats instead of apologies.

No more tough speech of the week. No more bull. No more nothing. No more doing nothing.

Enough.

No more of the snide, partisan bickering here at home. Enough of the hard left's insistence that one more appeasement might save the day. Enough of the hard right's calls for a total rollback on Islam, itself, starting in Baghdad.

Ladies and gentlemen, please stop acting like asses. Find a common ground in the need to deal with one, big problem that can be put off no longer. Come together as one on that one, greater matter, join hands as one and say...

Enough.

I don't say these words lightly. War is hell, and it's not just going to be enemy soldiers who lose their lives when Iraq becomes a battlefield. The people who coordinate the carnage can blather all they like about smart ordinance, non-lethal weaponry and the like, but that's what they told us the last time we did something like this. We'll be lied to, as usual. We're probably being lied to even now...

But enough is enough.

So make your peace with it. If it comes to war, ordinary people are going to die. Ordinary people are going to lose everything they ever worked for. Ordinary people are going to be maimed, blinded and turned into piles of bone-strewn ash. The same civilians we should be trying to save are going to die.

This isn't cause for celebration. This isn't something that should be drooled over or laughed at. This isn't entertainment - this is someone else's life.

But enough is enough.

Saddam Hussein is a menace. Containment can only go so far and work for so long. If we don't do this now, when Saddam's just trying to develop bigger, nastier WMDs, then we'll have to do it at some point when the stakes might be even higher.

And if we don't do this now, after all this talk, we'll have backed down from a fight. We'll have eroded our image. We'll have made our enemies realize that there's more paper than fur in our tiger.

We've painted ourselves into a corner, and it's time to put up or shut up.

So, enough.

Still, I hope someone with sense is planning to try something else. I hope they're seriously thinking of just doing a smash-and-grab with Saddam, and putting a popular replacement in charge, rather than hinging on a big, messy war to do the same thing.

We know it can work. We've seen its like before. But let's not let such a plan's absence stop us from saying...

Enough.

It's well past time to end this charade with Saddam Hussein. The gathering's gone stale. The hosts are wondering why they invited these folks, anyway. And the party games just aren't funny anymore.

We all know it has to end at some point, so let's just do it.

Now.


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