You’re stranded on a desert island with your family. A man who lives on the other side of the island has already killed several people, and now he is threatening to kill your children. There is no law or government of any kind on the island. Your dilemma: Do you wait for him to kill one of your children, and then retaliate? Or do you kill him before he can kill again?

The United States is stranded on Planet Earth. A guy named Saddam Hussein has already killed tens of thousands of his own people, and now he is financing the very terrorists who killed thousands of Americans. "International law" is a joke. The UN is totally ineffectual and the majority of its member states either support terrorism or are terrorist states themselves. Our president’s dilemma: Should he wait until Saddam unleashes the chemical and biological weapons he already owns (or finishes developing and then uses nuclear weapons), and then retaliate in kind? Or should we stop him before he can murder hundreds of thousands of American civilians or allies?

I don’t think any parent would have trouble deciding what to do in the first scenario. If my only choices were to take out a proven murderer, or wait for him to kill my daughter before I did anything, it would take me about two seconds to make my decision.

Yet thousands of liberal pacifists are calling on our Commander-in-Chief to wait until Saddam attacks America or one of our allies before making a move against this proven mass murderer. I would wager that if their child were in jeopardy on the island mentioned above, these same pacifists would be figuring out the most effective weapon to kill the murderer in order to save their child’s life. Why then can they not see the logic in permanently stopping Saddam Hussein before he commits mass murder again? The only thing I can think of is that they don’t believe it will happen to them. As long as Saddam’s first strike doesn’t hit them, they’re willing to be good sports and let him shoot the first missile.

Some claim that there is not enough evidence against Saddam to justify an invasion. I’m sure they’re right. Anyone looking at the evidence dispassionately would see that clearly Hussein is a great, but greatly misunderstood leader. He is actually a compassionate humanitarian. Let’s look at what everyone (except the liberals whose heads are too deeply buried in the sand) knows:

Saddam ordered the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen. Of course, these were Kurds, so they don’t count. Kurds are not from Saddam’s tribe. There are thousands of eyewitness accounts of these atrocities.

Israel was not involved in the conflict between Iraq and the coalition forces called the Gulf War. That did not stop Hussein from firing enough missiles at tiny Israel to destroy half their population. Had the U.S. not provided a "Scud umbrella" for Israel, that country would have been devastated.

The Butcher of Baghdad already has sophisticated weapons of mass destruction and dozens of factories to manufacture them. Weapons inspectors from numerous countries have attested to this. Why do you think Saddam kicked them out?

Not content to inflict death through the use of horrible chemicals and viruses, Iraq’s bloody dictator has lusted for nuclear weapons for years. Those same weapons inspectors have testified that when they were thrown out he was close to reaching this goal, and that over the last few years he may well have succeeded in developing at least a crude nuclear weapon. "What’s that you say, Mr. Daschle? George Bush bribed the weapons inspectors to say that, so we shouldn’t believe them? Thanks for setting that straight!"

Liberals like Daschle would like us to believe (for their own selfish political reasons) that Saddam is not a danger to us. They would do anything to embarrass George Bush or hinder his effectiveness, even if it meant that Americans might die. The fact is that Saddam is a danger to every person or nation that does not subscribe to his brand of madness. If he could push a button and kill every American, he would do so without hesitation. He doesn’t have such a button yet. But if we continue to wait, trying to build a worldwide consensus, which will never materialize, and which we don’t need, he may well have such a button very soon.

Are you willing to gamble your children’s lives that he won’t push it?