I would like to respond to all those who oppose the war in Iraq, and would appreciate it if they did not make up their minds before hearing my side of the story.

While watching TV the other night, I noticed that a well-known actor, George Clooney, was speaking against the war in Iraq. He went on and on about how the Iraqi people are not ready for democracy and freedom, how they need a dictator to, basically, dictate their lives.

This argument, though eloquently presented, sounded unusually similar to the stand many people took against the abolition of slavery in this country. Many of our countrymen believed that the slaves were not quite ready for “freedom.” Would they even know what to do with it?

I hope you’ll agree that this argument is just as silly now as it was over 200 years ago, and you must realize that taking a ridiculous stance like this one is just one of many freedoms we have in this great nation. I doubt that the Iraqi people share that same right.

If there was one thing I took from Clooney’s comments, it is that history tends to repeat itself. If you’ll remember correctly, during World War II there was a man by the name of Winston Churchill. He is now renowned as one of England’s finest political leaders, but that was not always the case. What many people don’t know is that, for years before the second World War, Churchill was screaming that something needed to be done about this German leader, Adolf Hitler, who was violating every aspect of the Treaty of Versailles.

By doing this, Churchill almost committed political suicide. He was called a war mongrel and extremist until his predictions came true.

A similar scenario is unfolding today. Saddam Hussein, just as Hitler did, has violated all 17 aspects of the treaty made after the Gulf War, and our own president is being ridiculed for wanting to go after this man.

Why is George Bush doing this? It’s obviously not for popular opinion. Is it because he is going after all that oil Iraq contains?

Of course not. How much of our oil actually comes from Iraq?

Let me think ... none. If I recall correctly, our vehicles have been running pretty well somehow since we put a trade embargo on Iraq in the early 1990s.

So what am I rambling about? It is this. Iraq will always be a threat to our lives and liberty as long as its malicious dictator is at the helm of a ship steered directly toward nuclear warfare.

Do we just not care anymore? Has Sept. 11 already become just another tragedy placed in the last pages of our history books? If you’ll recall, we lost twice as many people on that day than we did in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the United States declared war on Japan the very next day.

Though war is not a thing to be praised, and we are all scared to see our friends and family members go, let us rally behind our president and his soldiers who are fighting to make this insane world a little less crazy. So try and look at the bigger picture rather than the temporary drawbacks of not having our loved ones near. After all, it’s a sad world we live in when the opinion of our president changes with the price of gas.

James Hardin is from Covington.