September 16, 2002 -- Mister Thorne: Bush v. Saddam

By all accounts, Saddam is a real charmer. But he is deadly and sadistic. All his subjects fear him. He rules, and anyone who speaks against him in public is in for a dreadful fate. He is a horrible person.

But that's OK. What the president really fears, I believe, is the prospect of Saddam getting into that very exclusive club of Nations with Nukes. The president, I believe, doesn't fear that Saddam would try to nuke New York. The real fear is that he would wield such weapons in his own neighborhood.

We tolerate horrible people who rule over nations. We watch in disgust as brutal dictators subject their subjects to all sorts of horrible abuses. But Saddam is special. He's the sort of menace that is not content to find himself on page 327 of the Book of World History. That might be OK for General Noriega or that big fat guy in Angola, but Saddam's ambition is to be on page 1, right up there with the others.

The UN should consider the situation very carefully. Saddam is a test case of whether a maniac can be allowed, by international law, to wield nuclear weapons. We can expect this type of situation to recur. The UN should be careful to set the right precedent now.

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Mister Thorne
Daly City, CA
mrthorne@mindspring.com