It’s official: the biggest question looming in people’s minds these days — people, that is, who don’t live under a rock — is if and when our fearless president will carry out his not-so-veiled threat to attack Iraq. Newspaper columnists, talk-radio hosts, everyday folk on the street — it seems they all have an opinion. The war talk has become so rich that Slate, the online mag, just published the "Saddameter," a new daily column that monitors the chances of a US invasion of Iraq. Based on the latest developments — arrival of weapons inspectors, positioning of American soldiers in Kuwait, firing at planes in the no-fly zone — Slate pegged the possibility at 57 percent (and counting).

Me? Well, I must be one of those people who live under a rock because, truth be told, I don’t especially care about the prospect of war with Iraq. I’m not frantically following the policy debate. I’m not anxiously soaking up the commentary on how life will change, although it very well might. The imminent war in Iraq has not consumed me.

Don’t get me wrong. I despise Saddam Hussein as much as your average saber-rattling, gun-toting American. I know he has committed ruthless, inhumane acts. I don’t doubt that he could, someday, once he has the actual capability, unleash a rain of firepower on the US. But a pre-emptive war — any war! — is terrifying stuff. I have a visceral reaction to its carnage, destruction, blood, and guts. The thought of war makes my skin crawl.

So, for that matter, does the thought of George W. Bush, who has offered up little evidence to convince me that an assault on Iraq equals an assault on terrorism. I find it hard not to see Bush as a crafty manipulator whose primary objective has far more to do with controlling those vast Iraqi oil reserves than with protecting innocent Americans like me. After all, ever since the September 11 attacks, he and his minions have set about tromping on the very liberties at home that they say they want to defend abroad.

Which brings me back to my indifference to the prospect of a war against Iraq. It’s not that I don’t care about sending our troops into combat because, naturally, I do. I just happen to care more about the things that I watch unfolding here. Things like the near-unstoppable effort to make permanent the shameful Bush tax cuts for the richest one percent of Americans; the Bushies’ much-anticipated march to stack the bench with reactionary judicial nominees; and the little-noticed provision in the Homeland Security Act that would allow the Pentagon to spy on the consumer-spending and video-watching habits of regular, law-abiding citizens. The list goes on and on.

These stories are what I want to find plastered on the dailies’ front pages, displayed on the evening news, chatted about ad nauseam on the 24-hour cable circuit. But instead, it’s all war talk, all the time: retired-military-general talking heads; flashy TV graphics; breathless play-by-play accounts of the Bush-Hussein tango. The countdown to "Showdown with Saddam" begins. Ho hum.

Back to the Thoughts on going to war index.