I usually try to stay away from weighty world issues on this site, preferring instead to focus on comedy. But these past few months have filled me with an uneasy dread. And, considering that in these months I met and fell in love with the man of my dreams, that dread is really harshing my buzz. We are being led into a war we will most undoubtedly win, and quickly, but that "win" is going to drag on for years.

And why? What, exactly is this war about? Saddam Hussein is a dictator, pure and simple. He is ruthless, greedy and most likely devoid of a soul. On this point, everyone agrees, from Jacques Chirac to whatever idiot first coined the term "Freedom Fries". But is that what this war is about, the simple act of removing a tyrant from power? And if it is, what precedent does that set? Have we ever gone to war with the simple aim of removing the ruler? Not the ruling party, not the Red Tide, just the ruler? Vietnam and Korea were about Communism. Bosnia was about genocide. This War on Iraq is about removing Saddam because one day, maybe years from now, he may have weapons of mass destruction. (We don’t know exactly what he has because the inspections have never been given adequate time to work.)

This idea that a vague threat is cause for war leaves me very uneasy. Saddam is an easy target. His military and weapons stores are depleted, the populace of Iraq is weary after 12 years of sanctions and no ally is likely to come to his aid. But that's not a good enough reason to attack now.

It's almost as if President Bush wants a war, any war. Perhaps he wants to trigger the changes in government spending a war necessitates. Perhaps the tax cut and this war are an underhanded way of decimating Social Security and Medicare to the point where the government can no longer provide these services. Perhaps he just likes to see stuff blow up good. Or perhaps, and I know this is a radical idea, but perhaps this is all about oil.

I don’t want to spend too much time on the oil issue because it's been said before by smarter people than me and also because it's not really the point of this article, but the truth is, George W. Bush is an oil man. His father was an oil man. His Vice President is an oil man. And his National Security Advisor once sat on the board at Chevron. Of course this is all about oil. Iraq has it, we want it. And the other Arab countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, are no longer under Washington's thumb.

A shift from a fossil-fuel-driven energy system to one dependent on electric power or biomass or solar or wind would irretrievably change this nation. It would change the balance of corporate power, it would change the political status quo and it would change our daily lives. I don’t see this as a bad thing, but I think President Bush does.

That's fine. That disagreement is fine. His party is in power, he gets to call the shots. But what concerns me most, what keeps me awake, is the fact that he has never told us the true reasons for this war. He has kept on his focus-group-tested message of "weapons of mass destruction" and hammered home the ridiculous notion of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden is an Islamic fundamentalist. Saddam Hussein is not. As far as Bin Laden's movement is concerned, Bush and Hussein are part of the same evil. Bin Laden is not a tyrant, he a crazed zealot and drawing a link between him and the ruler of Iraq is faulty logic.

I cannot support this war. I fear that nothing good can come of it. The people of Iraq, once "liberated" from Saddam, are probably due for a long period of civil unrest. And we are due for a long period of occupation as we try to build a democracy in the country. But, the funny thing about a Democracy is that it only works when the people ask for it. It only works when the people of a country feel they have a stake in it. When I used to direct plays in college, my professor gave me some advice. The best way to get an actor to do what you want him to do is to make him think it was his idea. If we want the people to overthrow Saddam, we should help them, supply them, coach them. But, in the end the ownership must be theirs. It must come from them, from their hearts, from their guts. You cannot simply tell a people to be free, they must come that on their own. As it stands, the ownership of this movement is ours and the people if Iraq are going to resent the Hell out of us for it.

Obviously, it's too late to debate how to handle this crisis. We're going in. Now is the time for us to stand behind our President and our troops. On the latter, I have no qualm. Our troops, to the last man and woman, are patriots through and through and I respect them more than I can ever express for the sacrifice they are willing to make. The trouble is, they shouldn't have to do it. This is not a war that should be happening.

And for that reason, I cannot stand behind my President. I cannot endorse what he is doing. I cannot support it. I don't trust it and I don’t trust him. Not because I voted for Gore. Not because he said subliminable. Not because he has the charisma and public speaking skills of a rusty toaster. I cannot support him because he has never once told us the real reason for this conflict. He is putting our troops in danger for less than righteous reasons. And I can’t shake the feeling that this is only the first salvo in a string of conflicts around the globe that will alienate the world community and put millions more lives, American and other, at risk.

I am an American and George W. Bush is my president. Those words have never tasted more bitter.

Thank you for your time. Now, back to making jokes about Charo.