By Robert Gillis

Published in the Foxboro Reporter February 2003

Tonight, amid the cold and the snow, perhaps because of the shuttle tragedy, but more likely just to show some support, I hung a large American Flag in front of my house.

It’s a beautiful flag, isn’t it? It represents so much that’s good in the world.

Tonight, all that it represents is threatened with annihilation.

On Friday, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a press conference – the intensity of the speeches and language used gave the strongest indication yet that war in imminent -- not months but weeks. Maybe days.

This is a just war. This is not a war for oil or territory, not a war of conquest, nor is it escalated as a result of ego or political posturing or election campaigns or political polls.

This is war to prevent a holocaust.

The evidence is overwhelming. The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons, the materials to produce botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. American intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein has 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents and sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. He has mobile biological weapons labs designed to produce germ warfare.

In all cases, he has not accounted for these materials. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it. He has the ability to wreak havoc in the Middle East. He protects al Qaeda terrorists. He attacks and tortures his own people. He invaded Kuwait.

He wants us dead. All of us.

He has to be stopped.

So many in the media say peace is the answer, that violence solves nothing. They say diplomacy must continue. This time, they are wrong. You cannot be an advocate of peace when the drunken guy at the bar is holding the broken bottle to your neck. You cannot promote diplomacy when the robber is pointing the gun at you. You can’t sing, “Can’t we all get along” while your opponent stockpiles weapons of mass destruction and is aiming for you.

This is a war to stop a madman with his finger on the trigger. The gun – not to mention nuclear weapons, and the sarin gas, and the anthrax, and smallpox and God knows what else – is pointed at our allies and us. Saddam Hussein wants to use these weapons to kill us.

I keep thinking of the chill I felt when President Bush said, “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.”

The evidence is compelling and convincing. The lack of cooperation of the Iraqi government and its repeated deceit speaks for itself. The actions of its deranged leader speak volumes. The weapons of mass destruction – their existence confirmed by the United Nations years ago – are all unaccounted for.

If this evil is not stopped, imagine the future -- more days like September 11. Thousands dead from smallpox or anthrax or Ebola. Major cities reduced to smoking craters. A shoe bomber who succeeds. Millions of people dead.

Diplomacy has failed. The line must be drawn here. This far, no further.

Last week President Bush said, “We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended.”

Those who will defend the peace are even now traveling across the world into hell. Alone or with allies, American forces will put an end to this threat once and for all and keep the peace, and protect our future.

Pray for them. Their cause is just.

This country will face dark and uncertain times in the next few months, but this is infinitely preferable to the unimaginably horrific times we will most certainly face if a terrorist madman is left unchecked.