The U.S. should not invade Iraq for three reasons.

1) Thousands of innocent civilians would be killed
2) It would increase terrorism around the world
3) Our government is lying to us about the reasons it wants to go to war.

The main reason proffered for wanting to attack Iraq is that Saddam Hussein wields weapons of mass destruction that are likely to blow us up any second. That is absolute foolishness. Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s, the materials of which were provided to Saddam Hussein by his then-ally, the United States. The U.S. government conveniently averted its eyes when Hussein used these weapons first on Iran, and then on his own civilian population. But then he became our mortal enemy when he committed the one truly unforgivable crime: not following U.S. orders (when he invaded Kuwait in 1990).

There is currently no evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. And if our goal is truly a safer world, if our objective must be to disarm Iraq of any of these weapons that it may have, we must pursue weapons inspection in a serious manner, not as a stepping stone to all out war.

The second justification for attacking Iraq is even flimsier: that it is a crucial component in the war on terrorism. It should be apparent to any rational person that politically and economically dominating countries in the Middle East with violence and malice will lead to more, rather than less, terrorism. There has been a tremendous propaganda effort on the part of the administration to confuse this issue and divert attention away from the fact that, despite carpet-bombing Afghanistan into a lunar landscape, public enemy #1 Osama bin Laden remains at large-- and al Qaeda, the terrorist network that we hunted in Afghanistan is still operative. Saddam Hussein is a convenient target to go after in light of that embarrassment to the administration.

The real underlying causes for the White House�s panting and drooling to got to war are oil and domestic politics. Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves on earth, and, given that both the president and vice-president are former oil company executives, it�s reasonable to assume that these men are very familiar with Iraq�s oil wealth. It is important for them to gain control of these huge oil reserves not just for the use of the United States, but also to control other countries that are equally dependent on petroleum.

The war fervor is also a convenient to deflect attention away from Bush�s corrupt and failing administration. Corporate crime is at an all time high, 40 million Americans live below the poverty line, 50 million are without any sort of health care, and the environment and economy are on fast tracks to ruin. The sure way to keep all of these scandals off the front page is to call on the teeth-grinding Rumsfeld to snarl his way through another press conference about the imminent danger of Scud missiles flying over Detroit before Valentine�s Day.

The evil Nazi second-in-command Hermann Goering wrote, �the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.� This philosophy of waving boogeymen around to terrorize the populace, rob them of their civil liberties and keep them quiet while shady foreign and domestic policy decisions are implemented is surely not new to the Bush administration.

It is an unforgivable crime to the memory of those killed on September 11 to use their deaths as a false pretense to grab for oil, roll back civil liberties, and play party politics. But fortunately, people are taking a stand against this insanity. For the first time in the history of the United States, there is a strong and growing anti-war movement before a war even officially starts. This movement is occurring around the world as well. Just yesterday in fact, British train engineers refused to drive freight containing ammunition earmarked for British troops in Iraq. There is a growing realization that the flimsy excuses for war are hiding more insidious motives, and that the working class people of Britain, America, and Iraq will pay the price while their leaders jockey for strategic high ground over the corpses of the innocent.