Iraq averted?

Before Bush's reelection campaign, before thousands of Americans died in Iraq, before this country was politically divided, there was an opportunity to avert the crisis in which the citizens of this great nation now exist.

According to an article by David Gardner in Daily Mail (Sept. 26, 2007), Saddam Hussein made an offer to the US in February of 2003: for $1 billion dollars, the dictator would leave his country in a peaceful exile.

People would have been up in arms had Bush paid off one of this generation's greatest dictators. But now that the US is neck-deep in the Middle East, people look back to see what could have been done better.

According National Priorities Project, the cost of the Iraq War has exceeded $455 billion. Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, paying $1 billion to Saddam in order to save American and Iraqi lives alike looks like a great plan.

But what would have really happened? After Saddam left Iraq, if he actually lived up to his word, there still would have been Baath-party supporters left. And they wouldn't have allowed an American takeover lying down. There most surely would have been a fight.

If Saddam didn't leave, Americans would have been all over Bush for that mistake. It seems that no matter what, massive amounts of money were going to be spent, and lives were going to be lost, for that is the nature of war.

Of course Americans are now abandoning the Right for Left, because they can see the mistakes that Bush and his cronies have made. Four years ago, it wasn't that way; over 50 percent of Americans approved of the job that Bush was doing. Now they try to find every single mistake.

When the government built it in the 1960s, they never thought the public would see it from the air - Google Earth has recently made it possible for people to see a San Diego navy barracks in the shape of swastika.

Naturally, people are infuriated about the immorality that a swastika represents. According to a Sept. 27, 2007 New York Times article by Carolyn Marshall, the Anti-Defamation League in San Diego said: "We told the Navy this was an incredibly inappropriate shape for a structure on a military installation."

In accordance with the public's wishes, the Navy will "camouflage" the building so that it is less offensive. The price tag for such renovations will reach $600,000, which is already included in the 2008 Navy appropriations.

It seems that an oversight committee would have come in handy back in 1967 when Navy officials noticed the resemblance but decided to do nothing about it.

A society focused on social history and symbolism is bound to object to such a building, especially considering the violence and brutality that a swastika represents. In spite of this, we should not forget what a swastika meant before Hitler's reign.

In Buffalo's own city hall, a number of swastika-like symbols used to exist on the walls. When City Hall was being built in the 1930s, Native American symbolism was included in the interior design to recognize Western New York's heritage. The Native American symbol for the Four Winds was one of those integrated symbols - virtually identical to a Nazi swastika in shape, but not in meaning.

Before the natives used the symbol in their art, ancient Egyptians used it in their hieroglyphics to mean "health" and "happiness," according to A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot.

The Buffalo City Hall was later purged of the majority of the signs, but why? In the haste to be politically correct, Americans often forget what things meant before they were processed by a modern world. It is imperative that people not forget the value of antiquity.

The hypocrisy of President Bush may have been fully realized during his speech to the United Nations on Sept. 25, 2007: the leader of the free world speaking ardently about the necessity of supporting human rights, when he himself has been accused of breeching them.

According to a Sept. 26, 2007 Newsday article by Zachary R. Dowdy, Bush used the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights to charge Sudan and North Korea, among others, with disregarding their people's rights.

Protestors outside the UN, about 10 of which were arrested, demonstrated against Bush and his disregard for the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay - a number of reports have been publicized about the human rights violations of suspected terrorists detained there.

The speech that President Bush gave to the UN seems to have been somehow tailored for the audience; when it is convenient for Bush to worry about human rights, that's when he will do it.

Whether Bush was sincere in his speech or not, he must be given some credit for trying to mend the international image of the US; this country has ignored massive human rights issues in Sudan and elsewhere for long enough. Now that the easy part is done, let's hope that Bush takes real action abroad in favor of the innocent.