Dan Fishback: One man's fantasy world, one real world in jeopardy

We have a major national security problem on our hands. There's a man -- a deceitful man -- who has consistently lied to the world, jeopardizing the safety of Americans. As long as he stays in power, we are at a greater risk of terrorist attack. As long as he continues to disregard the truth, spouting lies into the air, this international bully will threaten our safety. This man must be stopped: George Bush.

President Bush insists that we are in immediate danger from without. He insists that we must wage preemptive war to defend ourselves against imminent attack. In a recent speech, he said, "there is universal agreement that Saddam Hussein poses as serious threat." Perhaps by "universal agreement," he meant, "everyone except the CIA and other intelligence experts."

On Oct. 7, the head of the CIA announced that Iraq currently poses a "low" threat. This threat would increase exponentially, he declared, if Saddam Hussein "conclude[d] that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred."

And what better way to ensure this conclusion than by threatening him with war unless U.N. inspectors return to Iraqi territory accompanied by the U.S. Army, establishing military camps throughout the country. Submit to invasion or we will attack. Far from U.S. self-defense, this policy increases Saddam's likeliness to use weapons of mass destruction. We are provoking a dictator who will not, in all likelihood, attack unless provoked.

This is common knowledge amongst intelligence officials. But Bush isn't entirely interested in "facts" or the analysis of seasoned professionals. In fact, many in the CIA now claim that the Defense Department is pressuring them to modify their analysis to suit pre-determined international policy. According to The Los Angeles Times, many officials accuse Donald Rumsfeld of ordering them to press the issue of Iraq-al Qaeda connections, despite a harrowing lack of evidence supporting such a link.

Indeed, despite this evidence void, Bush speaks of Hussein and Osama bin Laden as though they were roommates. The CIA will go so far as to say that Iraq and al Qaeda have "senior level contacts," and an agreement of "reciprocal non-aggression." They claim that al Qaeda members received chemical weapons training in Iraq.

However, British intelligence, unhampered by unethical U.S. executive coercion, doesn't quite comply. One intelligence source, when asked if al Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots, responded, "quite the opposite." British officials cite evidence that Hussein is actually actively distancing himself from both al Qaeda and Palestinian terrorists, a scenario actually makes much more sense than the Bush "they're all working together" fantasy. Saddam's secular regime would naturally feel quite threatened by religious extremists.

However, as the CIA announcement clarifies, the less Saddam has to lose, the more likely he is to establish contacts with al Qaeda, planning terror attacks against Americans. To quote the most chilling portion of the CIA document, "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a W.M.D. attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Therefore, by threatening Saddam with imminent attack, Bush is pressing him to ally himself with bin Laden, therefore completing this deadly self-fulfilling prophecy. When Bush goes around spouting lies about the connection between these two murderers, he ensures their union. The more direct danger, then, is not Saddam or bin Laden, but Bush himself.

Even aside from provoking terrorism, Bush threatens the U.S. by waging a hugely expensive war in a depressed economy. And since this war will most likely extract itself out over a long period of time, our deepening recession will have little hope of imminent salvation.

And, more abstractly, and perhaps most frighteningly, Bush threatens the foundation of America itself. Article VI of the Constitution reads: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Those treaties, which are, again, "the supreme law of the land" include the U.N. Charter. To violate that treaty by waging an unapproved, unilateral war against Iraq wouldn't just defy international law -- it would be unconstitutional. It would be, literally, anti-American.

Upset? The vice president will be on campus this Friday. Let him know what you think.

Dan Fishback is a senior American Identities major from Olney, Md.

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