War!

TODAY could mark a turning point in world history. The US ultimatum for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay to go into exile or face war has expired. Britain and the US will invade Iraq unless there is a last minute change of mind, which is unlikely. The US ultimatum for Saddam to quit is misdirected and unfortunate. Saddam, rightly so, has defied it. Because he is a president of a nation accountable to his people and can’t take directives from a president of another country to relinquish power. The war will have dire consequences on the whole world. But most significant will be that in the quest of disarming Iraq, the US will have disabled the UN rendering it irrelevant. So it will go down in history that the US, a country ruled by strong democratic principles —the sanctuary of freedoms, justice and liberty —contradicted its own values. It attacked a sovereign state without a popular UN mandate. Worse still it did not respected the millions who demonstrated against the war throughout the world. Today the world witnesses the birth of global dictatorship.
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