To make his rest peaceful once again, Clinton is proposing that $6.6 billion go to establish some protective barrier against these threats (to add to the already bloated $270 billion military budget). And they probably will be approved. So while welfare is on the chopping block and Social Security goes bankrupt, your tax-dollars will be paying for a defense mechanism that has less worth than Reagan's brilliant Star Wars program.

In the last two years, the U.S. government has been trying to identify an enemy with which to justify their increased military spending and imperialist and colonial ambitions in the developing world, while providing the public with no clue as to why American-led aggression abounds in the world.

Iraq has become the Soviet Union of the 1990s and Hussein the embodiment of all that is evil to the American way of life. Iraq is the United States' number one nemesis and has been used as a way to bring a fragmented population together in support of a government's misguided policies. Iraq is no angelic state and may be harboring weapons to protect themselves from such aggressive nuclear states such as Israel, and they must be monitored.

But the United States is not the entity to do so. The United States has one of the most developed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in the world. They recently have asked Russia to ignore the Ballistic Missile treaty so as to re-arm (with little proof of a foreign threat), setting a dangerous precedent for the future.

So why the current barrage of aggression against Iraq? To the United States, it has nothing to do with human rights, the establishment of democracy or goodwill. Iraq is sitting on the world's biggest oil field, an exploitable asset to the good ol' US of A. If this was Outer Mongolia, forget it.

The United States repeatedly has ignored countries in conflict in which no economic interests are at hand (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, etc.). The mere wealth and economic possibilities make the business elite who run this country drool, and they will do anything to get their hands on it. Aggression seems to be the favored method. As Helen Keller said: "Militarism … is one of the chief bulwarks of capitalism, and the day that militarism is undermined, capitalism will fail."

Countries throughout the world use military expeditions to further legitimize their rule and keep their population's eyes away from more important domestic issues. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982 in part to help legitimize an unpopular dictator's rule. The United States is doing much the same. Making Iraq, Sudan and virtually any country an enemy creates something around that the population will rally and support the government, regardless of the lack of evidence that exists. While these countries are bombed, the only explanations you are given are cloaked in that ever-effective term -- national security. Everything can be a danger to national security, and when it becomes one, the American public almost always accepts it as true. Tying yourself blindly to your countries actions is intellectual suicide; you give up the one thing that makes you human (the ability to rationalize) in favor of some phantom evil which "threatens" your way of life.

If I have made you angry, I hope along with that I have instilled in you a craving to search out the truth. How dangerous is Iraq? Will North Korea ever be an offensive threat to the United States? You may be surprised. Questioning the actions of your country is in no way questioning how patriotic you are and how much you love it. It is asking those in power who they are representing, and why. Do they represent you? Or do they represent the business elites who throw money into their coffers? These are the very questions which will only make your government a stronger democratic system and more attentive to the needs of its citizens.

The military actions sponsored by this nation's leaders are futile attempts at diverting your attention away from the crumbling social structure of this land and increasing the wealth of the few who possess so much. The military will stop being a tool of oppression when you choose to make your voice heard. As a Mexican revolutionary once said: "When power returns to the mouths of the liars, our voice of fire shall speak again."