If it wasn't apparent before, it certainly is now. The United States government is itching for a fight. In the past few days, Washington has expressed anger at the pace of UN weapons inspections in Iraq, stated that it doesn't matter whether or not the inspectors find anything because it will go to war anyhow, and most recently, is, to quote the New York Times, reacting "positively" to the news that inspectors seem to have found 11 clean and empty warheads that may be capable of delivering chemical weapons. Note, they did not find chemical weapons or their precursors, they merely found some warheads that could be used to deliver such materials. It is unclear if these materials were overlooked during the series of inspections in the 1990s, if Iraq merely forgot about them, or if they were constructed since then. Either way, initial reactions from the warmakers in Washington seem to indicate that this could be enough of an excuse to attack the people and land of Iraq. This is what the Times means by reacting "positively"--Washington has an excuse to kill.

     This type of reaction is overkill. Even if these warheads are of new construction, the most obvious answer to the problem they present for those intent on denying Iraq any access to weapons of mass destruction is to destroy the warheads, not the entire country. Of course, it's clear to most of the world's people by now that the true intent of the war makers is to regain unfettered access to the oil (and the profits it would create) underneath Iraq's surface. Many of these people are also wondering why the U.S. is so concerned about other countrys WMD when it is the US that has the most and sells the most. It is quite obvious that the search for Iraqi WMD is merely a pretext that is perceived to be salable to those of us who don't like war. By those of us, I mean most of the humans on the planet.

     Protests atook place this past weekend in Washington, San Francisco, and hundreds of other places around the world. These protests have a simple demand: No war on Iraq ad and an end to the sanctions against the Iraqi people. I hope the protests are incredibly large and loud. I also hope that the men and women hiding in their palaces in London and Washington, DC (or Crawford, Texas), heed the call of the people in their streets. It would be nice to see a hint of sanity emanating from behind those palatial walls. Of course, I don't expect my hopes to go anywhere. The people in charge of this country have continually shown their distaste for democracy. This has been even clearer ever since the current bunch in DC usurped the electoral process in November 2000. As time moves forward, their distaste for the remnants of the democratic process that do remain in our fair country has turned to blatant disrespect and an outright attack on that process.

     I don't want a war in Iraq or anywhere else, not to destroy their ability to make weapons, not for oil, not for global hegemony, not to cure Dubyas psychological problems regarding his daddys approval, not to contain an evil axis, and certainly not to make the masters of war wealthier than they already are.