Did you see the cover of the Daily News Friday (Jan. 28)? There was this dramatic picture (at right) of a fire along a railroad track, a scene from the Auschwitz commemoration they held in Europe. It was subtitled, “Never Again.” The holocaust was always one of those things that, for me, evoked a lot of emotion. But never have I been so enraged by it. Nothing I ever saw in a history book, in a documentary, anywhere, angered me like this. I still haven’t read that article; it was just those two little words, “Never Again.”

Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t agree with that sentiment more. Auschwitz was an atrocity the likes of which, many people would say, has never been paralleled in human history. I fully support “Never Again.” But this article isn’t about nazis, Jews, or concentration camps. It isn’t even about Germany. This is about Iraq.

You’ve seen the same bumper stickers I’ve seen. You see several, every day. Maybe you even know someone who has one. “War is not the answer.” “Bush lied, people died.” “Defend America, defeat Bush.” “Save a tree—wipe your ass with an owl.” “Out of Iraq NOW!” “No blood for oil.”

Doesn’t that depend on the question? How many people have come forward and said no one gave Bush the information they had that said there were no WMDs? How does putting the president down improve the country? What did that owl ever do to you? What happens if we all of a sudden just leave Iraq in a wave and leave them to the devices of the rebels who keep killing everyone? Where is all this oil we’re supposedly taking from Iraq? I’m paying $2.00 a gallon; what about you?

The media has been hyping the idea that we should never have gone anywhere near Iraq if we didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction…well, pretty much since the war started. But no one can answer for me what weapons of mass destruction Hitler had. What about Napoleon? Where are the ones he had? How many millions more need to die before someone steps in? There is so much more to being a terrorist and to being a threat than having bombs that are each capable of killing thousands. Hitler killed 6 million people—only the German Jews, as I understand, are included in that number. How much different would the world be today if someone had gone into Germany in the late 1930’s and yanked that chair out from under Hitler? Should we have waited until Hussein started taking over neighboring countries and killing off millions of them to keep it from happening?>

Next question. What the hell are history books for? I was always taught that it was so that we could learn from other’s mistakes, to keep the bad things in history from repeating themselves, to learn the patterns that precede atrocity to prevent it. What is the difference between Napoleon, Hitler, and Hussein? Personally, the only major one I see is that we let the former two get away with too much.

“And [Hitler] was a mass-murdering fuckhead, as many important historians have said. But there were other mass murderers that got away with it! Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, well done there; Pol Pot killed 1.7 million Cambodians, died under house arrest at age 72, well done indeed! And the reason we let them get away with it is because they killed their own people, and we're sort of fine with that. ‘Ah, help yourself,’ you know? ‘We've been trying to kill you for ages!’ So kill your own people, right on there. Seems to be… Hitler killed people next door... ‘Oh… stupid man! After a couple of years, we won't stand for that, will we?’“ —Eddie Izzard, “Dress to Kill”

I’ve said it before, I’ll keep saying it for years to come. What this country needs is another Roosevelt in office. Someone who isn’t afraid to come along and pick this country up by the bootstraps and make some investments in the world. It was even a Roosevelt who unseated Hitler, if you think about it. I give a lot of kudos to someone who has the balls to stand up and fight for something bigger than himself, bigger than you and me. All our soldiers out there, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, all over the world; our president, his cabinet and staff. How easy would it have been to turn a blind eye to Iraq, to Hussein? To the mass graves, the military situation, to a whole nation living and dying in fear.

Hussein has killed his millions, and the numbers were growing to the day we got there. But we should have let him stay at it. We should have let him keep killing. We should have let him keep crumbling what used to be the jewel of the Middle East to third-world desolation. Because there were no weapons of mass destruction. No WMD = No Wrong, right?

Wrong. But that is how the media (and, let’s face it, most Kerry supporters) insist on portraying it.

That is what our brave men and women are fighting for over there—some military, some not. That is what they are dying for. Not for oil. Not for Bush. For the Iraqi people. For something bigger and higher than themselves. Than Bush. Than me. Than you.

There are more things than you can imagine that we take for granted as a part of our daily lives that these people have lived without for decades. Things that, were they denied you for a day, for an hour, you would be appalled, offended. But you ask these hordes of people to do without for innumerable decades to come, to cower in any corner they can find, afraid to think, much less speak. Because we didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.

Let me put this into perspective. We did find the Iraqi weapon of mass destruction. We found him in a hole in someone’s backyard last year, hiding under Styrofoam. Mass graves = mass destruction. It’s that simple, whether you are willing to look at it or not. I support our troops, I support Bush, and I support the war in Iraq—because I support Iraq. I’d pay $2.00+ per gallon for gas for the rest of my life, if I could see another picture like this one.

Let me leave you with a few more bumper sticker thoughts.

“Bye bye Bush, bye bye Iraq mess.” Honestly. Who is this stupid? Well, besides Ted Kennedy, I mean. But that’s another article altogether. Like we can just walk out and everything will fall into place. We made Iraq our responsibility. Now, look at the picture above and tell me, honestly, “Mission Nothing Accomplished”. Tell me we aren’t working to make Iraq a better place. Tell me we’ve done no good for these people. Tell me they were better off before we went there.

Last one. I promise.

“Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.” I don’t think I could say it better than some unidentified person on the Net, so, giving credit where credit is due, here’s what he said: “Fighting for peace is like working really hard so you can have a restful retirement. Oh wait.”