Well, next week at this time we will either be at war, with the UN beside us, or without it. I found myself frustrated by the things that Bush could not say last night. I was so relieved at the end when he reminded people that it was Saddam's choice whether to have this war or not. This is a defining time for the UN. It will soon go the way of the League of Nations if it does not back it's words. All of this whining about "one more chance, one last chance" by reporters last night was driving me mad. There already has been ONE LAST CHANCE, it is called resolution 1441, you fools!

I bet half of the people complaining about the war were hanging out their flags with everyone else on Sept 12, 2001. HELLO? Do you not get the connection here? Everyone should have to watch those images again before this starts, to remind them of the cost of not going in. When the President said that it would be hard to imagine anything worse than Sept 11, I disagreed. I think that it would be easy to imagine worse, a guy that has all of those biological weapons and won't say two words about where they have gone? Even Blix said, "you don't just lose track of mustard gas." And yes, people, it is scary. But it is scarier to wait until he has more, and on another note, what we do here, says a lot to those other nations developing similar programs, ie North Korea, Syria, Libya, etc. Do we mean what we say? In some ways, this war may also be a diplomatic solution to other world threats.

I said to my husband last night, "imagine if Hitler had said, well, I'll let 20,000 of the millions of Jews go", do you suppose the international community would have considered that a good faith effort? Yes, these are weapons, not people, but they are weapons used to kill people (which is another hypocrisy of the anti war crowd, but I won't even go there), or to protect people. And in Saddam's case, he has already proven that they are used to kill, to achieve more power and glory for himself and his regime.

I said recently to my sister, "this is going to be, around the world in ? days." When she asked what I meant, I was telling her that for some reason people didn't hear the entire response to the war on terror. That it would be long, drawn out, and different means would be used in different places, but there are a lot of places left to take care of before they are not a threat to us any longer. That scares the shit out of people. My own whiny generation (X) was brought up in the relative peace and prosperity of the 70's and 80's. There was some fear of nuclear war, of the USSR, but overall there was peace and prosperity. I remember the day that I learned something and didn't know how much it would affect my thinking about foreign affairs until later. I was 11 and was home from school sick on the day that Reagan was inaugurated. I watched on TV, and as the power turned over from Carter to Reagan, the breaking news came that the hostages were being released. I understood at once that there are certain peoples who only understand what they use, intimidation, violence. They knew that Reagan would act, and they weren't going to take that chance. I'll always remember that lesson. My sister also asked me if I ever wondered what our father would think of the events that happened, as he had died the year before. I said, "honestly, no." I loved my dad, but I know what he would have thought, it's awful, but within two weeks his overriding concern would have been the effects on his stocks. That doesn't make me proud to say, but it is true. I did answer her that I really was missing my grandfather at that time, and what his thoughts would have been. He was in Germany in WW2. He was a patriot, a true yankee, a politically active, proud American. He taught my dad his fiscal conservatism, but my father rejected the notion of service to your country, he was drafted a low number for Vietnam, and avoided going by signing with a National Guard unit that had just returned, so as not to go. So he did reserves in the Army, hated it, and that was the end for him.

Where is our greatest generation now? We need their voices, their experience. No this is not WW2, but it is us trying to contain the things that could lead to WW3. Do we really want to wait, can we afford to?

To act in spite of your fear is to truly be brave. And we must be brave now, or we shall pay immeasurably later.