Commentaries appear at regular intervals. If you would like an invited commentary for your publication, please let me know!

If you could go back in time and correct a mistake that cost millions of lives, would you do it? More specifically, would you prevent a dictator from starting a war and killing not only people in the army, but innocent civilians? Stop that dictator from torturing political opponents? Stop that dictator from stealing aid meant to feed starving people and using it to furnish his many palaces?

It seems like an easy question, doesn't it? Yet, apparently, millions of people are answering "no" to the above question. And what reason do they give? Largely it boils down to the fact that the dictator, who "may" be a bad guy, is not trying to kill them or anyone they know.

Shocking, isn't it?

We fought a world war to stop a Nazi dictator and his allies. We fought a Cold War to stop Communist dictators and their allies. Now that the time has come to stop another dictator, Saddam Hussein, we find many people demanding that we leave him alone. I cannot conceive of any valid reason why he should remain in power. Saddam's list of crimes is long:

• He was waged wars of aggression against his neighbors.

  Saddam has attacked Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In addition, he has attacked the countries that have come to the aid of those countries, like the United States and United Kingdom.

• He has used forbidden weapons, including weapons of mass destruction.

  Saddam has used poison gas, on both opposing troops and his own people when they dared oppose his totalitarian rule. Saddam has also developed biological weapons and has been trying to develop nuclear weapons.

• Saddam has violated numerous international agreements.

  Iraq has repeatedly violated numerous U.N. resolutions over those 12 years in addition to violating the terms of the 1991 cease-fire from the first Persian Gulf War.

• Saddam has committed war crimes.

  Saddam is executing and torturing prisoners, shooting his own people who try to surrender or oppose him, threatening to kill the families of those who don't fight, ordering his troops to fake surrenders and wear civilian clothes to deceive allied troops, and is committing other crimes against the rules of war and humanity. There is evidence that he has begun to bomb his own cities in order to try to portray the allies as perpetrators of war crimes.

• Saddam is oppressing his own people.

  Anyone opposing his rule is tortured and killed. Sometimes entire families are wiped out. His secret police are brutal, and women and children are often raped and beaten by Saddam, his family and their thugs.

Any one of the above items would be sufficient reason to remove him from power, let alone all of them taken together. Why would any sane person oppose removing him from power?

For some, it is a cynical political ploy. Nations like France, Germany and Russia have been supporting Saddam for years. His ousting would let the records of that support become public, causing them much embarrassment. So they would rather let millions continue to be tortured, raped and killed rather than suffer a little international tsk-tsking. These people had the chance to do the right thing in the United Nations, but they failed to step up to the plate. Their failure may doom the United Nations to the ash-heap of history, though that would not be a bad thing. (Note to self: The next time we try to build a super-national organization, let us make sure the inmates and parolees are not in charge!)

For other people, opposition to the war stems from race and/or religion: Saddam is an Arab and Muslim and his major opponents (this time) are Caucasian and Judeo-Christian. It is pathetic that after centuries of religious and racial warfare we still have a sizeable population that is willing to let evil prevail as long as it is not "their kind" of people being killed. One can hope that these people will see the error of their ways, but history suggests that only time heals this kind of wound—the time it takes to educate racism and intolerance out of a population. Sadly, history has demonstrated this usually requires two to three generations and considerable strife.

For a very few, opposition stems from ignorance. These people simply are not smart enough, wise enough, or well-educated enough to understand that Saddam is a threat, or even that Saddam lies about what he is about and what he does. There is little hope for these people. They have to be burned by the fire, sometimes several times, before they understand why it is dangerous.

A tiny subset of people thinks you can stop evil with a nice, quiet discussion. To those people I say: ask the Jews where their polite, humble and unobtrusive demeanor got them in Nazi Germany. They learned the hard way that peace comes through strength, not through weakness. They learned the hard way that when you leave your fate up to someone else, that person might not have your best interests in mind.

Let no one doubt that war is justified. We will do the right thing; we will liberate Iraq. We will make sure that in future years students do not have to answer the hypothetical question "would you go back in time to stop Saddam Hussein from killing tens of millions of people?" We are going to stop him and we will not let greed, politics, racism, religious intolerance or stupidity stop us.

I can not conceive of any valid reason why he should remain in power.

It is pathetic that after centuries of religeous and racial warfare we still have a sizeable population that is willing to let evil prevail as long as it is not "their kind" of people being killed.

These people simply are not smart enough, wise enough, or well-educated enough to understand that Saddam is a threat...

We will do the right thing; we will liberate Iraq.