do? Perhaps we are too scared to do anything, and finally write Kuwait off as a loss. Then, bolstered by his victory, he takes the Saudi oil fields, right next door to Kuwait. With these two moves he now has 20% of the world's oil supply. And he hasn't launched a single WMD (weapon[s] of mass destruction: chemical, biological and nuclear). He still has those nukes pointed at Tel Aviv. He now has the money to really get his WMD programs going. And with 20% of the world's oil supply, he now has the power to turn on and off the flow at his own whims, whenever anyone displeases him, and threaten worldwide depression. This would, of course, be bad enough for all of us; losing our jobs and our freedom to pursue our pleasures of vacationing halfway around the world and putting off real full time employment by piling college degree upon college degree in search of that indulgence peculiar to our generation and our countries: a personally satisfying career. However, the outlook for the rest of the world, the Third World, would be much bleaker. In many countries, people would die from disease, hunger, and civil unrest.

To give a man like Saddam Hussein that kind of power seems completely insane to me, regardless of your worldview on capitalism and the world economy. And while this is obviously a worst case scenario, the principle stands. Even if he stopped at Kuwait, he would have incredible economic power. At best the U.S. and U.N. would have to (and probably would) step in at some point long before Saddam gained control of so much oil. But the point is that we would have to act under the threat of nuclear retaliation on us, on Israel, or on the world's oil supply. With the combination of WMD and oil, Saddam would have the power to manipulate and blackmail the world, and his personality is uniquely suited to pursuing this course of action.

The issue of oil is a hot one. In principle, it seems criminal start a war, to kill and be killed, over a commodity, a substance. But the point is not oil; its Saddam having control over the world's economy, money, and thus people. Oil is just the method from which he gains that control. Its easy to condone the use of violence to stop murder, whether its a single criminal or the leader of a nation. But if institutional violence ceases for any crime less than murder, again on the personal or national level, then we still end up with anarchy. Stealing from a person is still taking his or her life, one hour at a time; the time they've put in to make the money or the loss of freedom that comes from poverty. If a man or nation wants to gain (not to mention steal) a commodity for the sole purpose of impoverishing others, then that is a thing worth fighting over as much as a man or nation killing another.

I certainly don't make this statement as a blanket justification for violence. I think all peaceful measures should be exhausted before violence is contemplated. Non-violent resistance was a wonderful and revolutionary development of the 20th century. But violence can't be out of the realm of contemplation in some situations.