Keep your mind focused ... on Saddam Hussein. Do not permit it to stray toward the thousands of Iraqi people, including ordinary Iraqi soldiers, whom we must unfortunately kill in order to disarm Saddam. Don’t think about them. Think only about how wonderful and glorious it will be to see Saddam dead or put into the dock at an international war-crimes tribunal or paraded through the streets. Think about how good you felt when we arrested Manuel Noriega in our invasion of Panama, thereby helping to stem the tide of drugs into America.

This war is about liberation. Yes, it’s true that the thousands of Iraqis we must kill in order to finally get to Saddam will not experience the joys of that liberation. They will be dead. But think about the Iraqis who will live to experience them. Even those who are maimed, blinded, and paralyzed will sing our praises, because, as everyone knows, it’s better to be maimed, blind, and paralyzed and living in freedom under a U.S. army general than it is to be whole and living in tyranny under a totalitarian dictator.

But just don’t think about the deaths and injuries that we must inflict on the Iraqi people in order to disarm Saddam. Keep your mind focused only on him, and you’ll do fine.

After all, think about how you have handled our economic blockade against Iraq, which has now been in effect for more than 10 years, a blockade that has contributed to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Iraqi children, who also unfortunately will be unable to experience the joys of our war of liberation.

Have those deaths bothered you? Probably not. And the reason they haven’t is that you haven’t thought about them. Right? You’ve just kept your mind focused on how evil Saddam Hussein is and on the importance of a regime change in Iraq. Right? Well, it’s important that you do the same thing once we begin our invasion.

Much has been said about the three high UN officials who resigned their posts because of the deaths of the Iraqi children that our blockade helped to cause. Pay them no mind. Once the UN voted to establish that blockade, those officials had no moral right to resign their positions just because they were suffering a crisis of conscience. That’s not what loyalty and patriotism are all about.

After all, did you see Janet Reno resign her post after we gassed our own people at Waco, including the Branch Davidian children? Of course not. Because, unlike those UN officials who resigned their positions because of a crisis of conscience, Reno, a true American, loyally and patriotically stayed at her post.

Anyway, it’s not really our blockade that has killed those children. It’s Saddam Hussein who has killed them. Because he could have used the money from our socialist “oil for food program” to feed the children. Instead, he gave higher priority to the needs of government officials, including the Iraqi military. And his callousness really shocked us.

That’s not something we would have done. Never mind that we’re giving priority to our government officials and the U.S. military to receive our limited supplies of smallpox vaccine. That’s different.

The Pope has said that our invasion of Iraq is wrong because it will be an unprovoked attack on another nation. Pay him no mind. He might be an expert in moral and theological matters but he is no expert when it comes to foreign policy.

We have a moral right to invade Iraq because Saddam has violated rules, regulations, and resolutions of the United Nations. As everyone knows, he has shown utter contempt for the UN. The problem, however, is that the UN refuses to enforce its own resolutions. The UN has no backbone. Therefore, we must ignore the spineless UN cowards in order to punish Saddam for having contempt for the United Nations.

We also have a moral right to invade Iraq because Saddam might use biological and chemical weapons and nuclear weapons against the United States at some time in the future. After all, he’s an evil man. And the fact that he has the weapons means that he might use them against us, especially since he might be angry that our blockade has contributed to the deaths of so many Iraqi children over the past 10 years.

Don’t let the fact that Saddam hasn’t used those weapons against us for more than 10 years influence you. All that means is that he’s been lulling us into a false sense of security. Don’t forget: he is an evil and cunning man.

And we know that Saddam is lying when he denies having those biological and chemical weapons because when my father was serving as our vice president his regime gave them to him. No, my father is not evil for delivering biological and chemical weapons to an evil man. My father is good. It was Saddam and his evil and seductive ways that induced my father to deliver those evil weapons to him. That’s also why my father’s regime knowingly and intentionally helped Saddam to use the biological and chemical weapons we gave him against the Iranian people. My father and his regime were duped by that evil man.

One more point about the Pope’s declaration that this will be an unjust war. You don’t need to worry about his pronouncement, especially if you’re Catholic, because it will be the U.S. government, not you, that will be waging the war and therefore, from a moral standpoint, you’re off the hook. That’s also why the German people who loyally and patriotically supported their government’s war efforts in World War II could not be held morally accountable for what their government did. After all, what is patriotism if it’s not loyally supporting one’s government and its troops, especially in time of war?

Don’t think even for a moment that God will hold you morally accountable for the deaths of those Iraqi people. He won’t. For one thing, it’s war. And remember, in war, there are no laws against murder. People die in war. Thus, as long as it’s war, how can God hold the killings to be wrongful? Right?

Everyone, including God, knows that war is hell and that in war anything goes. That’s why we had every right in the world to firebomb the people of Dresden and other German cities and to drop nuclear bombs on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for what their government was doing. It’s also why our friend and ally, the Soviet Union (which was the victim of a war of aggression by Nazi Germany, as the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal's indictment reflected), had the right to rape thousands of German women near the end of World War II. It's why we have the right to torture prisoners in our "war on terrorism." War is hell, and in war anything goes, and God knows it.

And if for whatever reason you do start to reflect on the deaths of all those Iraqi people, just keep thinking how good and compassionate we Americans are. In fact, today I’m announcing a welfare packet for people in Africa who are suffering from AIDS. Billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer monies will be going to help them. That proves that we are a good and compassionate people. You think about that when the invasion of Iraq begins ... and also on April 15 when you help to fund our new, compassionate international AIDS welfare program with your donations to the IRS. If anyone begins to have a crisis of conscience over all the Iraqis we must kill to disarm Saddam, our AIDS welfare packet should help to salve and medicate that pain.

We have had many months of good, spirited debate in this nation about the wisdom of going to war against Iraq. That’s what democracy is all about. But keep in mind what every one of you has been taught from the first grade on up in our public schools: in our country, since I’m the commander in chief, I get to make the final decision on whether to send our nation into war; and once the shooting starts, it’s your solemn duty, as a good citizen, to loyally and patriotically support your commander in chief and our troops.

And make no mistake about it: we always have the welfare of the troops foremost in our minds when we send them to fight and die in these foreign adventures. That’s also why our V.A. hospitals are top-notch. In fact, that’s our goal with nationalized health care: to bring the quality of V.A. hospitals to all of you. It’s also why we conducted biological, chemical, and radiation experiments on unsuspecting U.S. servicemen — so we could garner information to protect other U.S. servicemen. It’s why we sent hundreds of thousands of American GIs to die in Southeast Asia — to protect them from the threat of communism. It’s also why we still have 37,000 sacrificial “trip-wire” troops in Korea — to protect them from communism. It’s also why we sacrificed American GIs in Somalia — in order to feed the Somali people, because Americans are good.

I know — all this is complicated and you might have trouble understanding it. Just leave it to us here in Washington. We're the experts. That’s why we’re here and you’re there.

Keep in mind also what the secretary of state in my father’s regime, James Baker, pointed out on the eve of the Gulf War: that war against Iraq is also about jobs. Think about all the jobs we’re creating in the U.S. military-industrial complex, a complex that now outranks even some of those in Latin America in terms of national power and influence.

Yes, I know, there are those who say that Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union by making it spend its way into bankruptcy. But every economist in the world will tell you that that economic principle applies only to evil empires, not to good ones. And we’re a good one.

So once I order the invasion, the debating must come to a stop, and as a good citizen you must come on board and support our efforts. Just sit there on your couch in front of your television set, watch us dazzle you with our unbelievably fantastic new weaponry that you have paid for with your payments to the IRS, and sing along with us: “Well, I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”

God bless America ... and may He quickly make room for those thousands of Iraqi people who will soon be dispatched into His care. Just don’t think about them.