Bomb Saddam

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            Room 295 of the Suffolk Law School building in downtown Boston was 
            filled to capacity on July 23 with peace activists, aging Cambridge 
            hippies and assorted freaks. 
            One of the organizers for the gathering, United For Justice With 
            Peace Coalition, handed out green pieces of paper that read, "We 
            will not support war, no matter what reason or rhetoric is offered 
            by politicians or the media. War in our time and in this context is 
            indiscriminate, a war against innocents and against children." 
            Judging from the crowd, and from the buzz in the room, that pretty 
            much summed things up. 
            Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, offered a stark 
            contrast when he entered the room. There at the lectern stood this 
            tall lantern-jawed man, every inch the 12-year Marine Corps veteran 
            he was, who looked and spoke just exactly like a bulldogging high 
            school football coach. A whistle on a string around his neck would 
            have perfected the image. 
            "I need to say right out front," he said minutes into his speech, 
            "I'm a card-carrying Republican in the conservative-moderate range 
            who voted for George W. Bush for President. I'm not here with a 
            political agenda. I'm not here to slam Republicans. I am one." 
            Yet this was a lie -- Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a 
            political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen. 
            Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice 
            and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq. According to 
            Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more than domestic American 
            politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric and entirely divorced 
            from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the horizon. 
            "The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to 
            have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat 
            operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast 
            majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in 
            Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and 
            told the Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS 
            satellite kits that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while 
            the planes fly away, by Sept. 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force 
            has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat 
            operations in Iraq by mid-October."

------------------------------------------------------------------- Room 295 of the Suffolk Law School building in downtown Boston was filled to capacity on July 23 with peace activists, aging Cambridge hippies and assorted freaks. One of the organizers for the gathering, United For Justice With Peace Coalition, handed out green pieces of paper that read, "We will not support war, no matter what reason or rhetoric is offered by politicians or the media. War in our time and in this context is indiscriminate, a war against innocents and against children." Judging from the crowd, and from the buzz in the room, that pretty much summed things up. Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, offered a stark contrast when he entered the room. There at the lectern stood this tall lantern-jawed man, every inch the 12-year Marine Corps veteran he was, who looked and spoke just exactly like a bulldogging high school football coach. A whistle on a string around his neck would have perfected the image. "I need to say right out front," he said minutes into his speech, "I'm a card-carrying Republican in the conservative-moderate range who voted for George W. Bush for President. I'm not here with a political agenda. I'm not here to slam Republicans. I am one." Yet this was a lie -- Scott Ritter had come to Boston with a political agenda, one that impacts every single American citizen. Ritter was in the room that night to denounce, with roaring voice and burning eyes, the coming American war in Iraq. According to Ritter, this coming war is about nothing more than domestic American politics, based upon speculation and rhetoric and entirely divorced from fact. According to Ritter, that war is just over the horizon. "The Third Marine Expeditionary Force in California is preparing to have 20,000 Marines deployed in the (Iraq) region for ground combat operations by mid-October," he said. "The Air Force used the vast majority of its precision-guided munitions blowing up caves in Afghanistan. Congress just passed emergency appropriations money and told the Boeing company to accelerate their production of the GPS satellite kits that go on bombs that allow them to hit targets while the planes fly away, by Sept. 30, 2002. Why? Because the Air Force has been told to have three air expeditionary wings ready for combat operations in Iraq by mid-October."