Column: Germany 1939; Iraq 2003

For all of you out there who are opposed to us going to war with Iraq, how would you feel if we had never entered WWII? Should we have just let Hitler take over the world and impose his Final Solution? Well, that's a good point you have there when you say that we were provoked. I can hear you saying "Hello! Pearl Harbor!" and you're right. We were provoked. However, by then it was nearly too late. You see, we should have entered that war far before Saddam Hussein had amassed such a huge base of power and conquered territory. I'm sorry; did I say "Saddam Hussein" when I meant "Adolf Hitler"? My mistake. It must be the immense number of similarities between our current situation and the situation in Europe circa 1939.

In the Versailles treaty that ended WWI Germany was treated just harshly enough to make her really mad but not quite harshly enough to prevent a resurgence of her power. Germany was forced to reduce her army to 100,000 men, reduce the navy to 6 warships and no submarines, demilitarize the Rhineland, pay reparations to the Allied countries for all damage caused by the war and accept all of the blame for the war. All this was decided in a negotiation to which Germany was not even invited. This created a popular resentment in Germany that Hitler exploited.

In the years following the treaty Germany systematically violated almost all of it: Reparation payments stopped within a year, rearmament began in 1933, 1936 saw the reoccupation of the Rhineland and in 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, England and France finally decided to declare war. By then it was almost too late. Each violation of the treaty, each act of aggression, was dismissed by countries who didn't want to get involved in a war. Was this a good idea? Hindsight is of course 20/20 but from where I sit it would have worked out better if perhaps when Germany remilitarized the Rhineland England and France had done battle to put Germany in her place.

That situation is frighteningly comparable to what we are facing right now with Iraq. In 1991, Iraq surrendered to the United Nations and agreed to end their weapons of mass destruction program and to submit to U.N. inspections. For 11 years now U.N. sanctions have been imposed on Iraq, to be lifted only once the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs are verified extinct by U.N. inspectors. These sanctions decrease the quality of life of the average Iraqi, creating - you guessed it!- popular resentment, ripe for exploitation.

In 1997, Iraq first expelled U.N. inspectors, then proceeded to allow inspections sporadically. This begs the question: What are they hiding? They have disregarded no-fly zones. Iraq has violated terms of the 1991 settlement to an extent that it is impossible for the masses to determine. Are these all seemingly relatively small infractions? Yes. Will they add up to another WWII? Not likely. Should we really wait for another Pearl Harbor before we act? Well....

I do not advocate or oppose a war with Iraq; I simply do not know enough to make that decision. It would be impossible for the average citizen to know whether or not it is wise to attack a foreign country. Well, scratch that, not "impossible," simply militarily suicidal. If the U.S. government were to reveal everything they knew about Iraq, everything that made it imperative for us to attack them, we would be showing our hand to Saddam Hussein. CNN is not only broadcast in this country.

Luckily I don't have to make that decision, because we live in a representative democracy. What that means is that we elect leaders to represent our wishes to our governing body. Indeed, we even elect the leader of our government. Everyone in the position of making the decision of whether or not to go to war with Iraq, or any other nation for that matter, has either been directly elected by the voters or appointed by a duly elected official. There are some matters in which popular referendums are ideal: Should we ban the death penalty? Should we have tougher gun laws? These are the types of questions where popular opinion can and should play a large role; these are the types of questions that the population can be fully informed about without any loss of national security.

Will we go to war with Iraq? Is it a good idea to do so? I don't know. And for now I'm going to have to be satisfied with that answer. Until I become president that is.