Picture This

Imagine a mother with an out-of-control child in the grocery store. The boy is sampling from the bulk bins at will, tipping full shopping carts, whining, crying, bullying, and taunting. Mom is at her wits' end.

Everybody is afraid to do anything. The store manager eventually comes to the scene and politely but firmly asks the woman to control her child. She takes offense at the correction, but she tries to calm her boy down. But he's screaming and flailing uncontrollably and she loses her grip on him, setting off another chain reaction of general pandemonium.

Everybody's staring. The manager keeps asking the boy to behave.

Finally, an off-duty Marine steps in and grabs the boy by the nape of the neck, yelling into his face, "Young man, listen to your mother! This is not acceptable behaviour!"

The boy quiets down, and although still seething with rage, he more or less controls himself, frightened into obedience by the powerful stranger.

Silently, the whole store is relieved that somebody had the brass to get the kid in line. The mom ain't too thrilled however - she's both embarrassed and angry - and the manager is fuming that his soothing words had no effect.

The story hits the media, and while everybody agrees that the boy's behaviour was indeed unacceptable, the Marine is shunted the brunt of the criticism.

"Excessive force" is the term thrown about. "Abuse of power" is another.

This young boy has a name, and I will reveal it: his name is Iraq. Mom is the Hans Blitz & the UNMOVIC (United Nations Monitoring, Verification & Inspection Commission). The store manager is the UN itself, and the other shoppers are the nations of the free world. Our Semper Fi friend is good ol' Uncle Sam himself.

We must not forget, despite all the tactical mistakes made in Iraq over the last few years, that Iraq was not America's problem to fix. The UN demonstrated repeated spinelessness with its repeated verbal reprimands to Saddam Hussein. If America didn't jump in and take charge, by now we'd be hearing about the forty-ninth UN Security Council Resolution denouncing Iraq for failing to disclose the locations of its known stockpiles of WMDs. Or in the words of the Frenchman in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

Talk is cheap, and therefore easily produced. The UN never would have done anything but talk and talk and talk. There's your global warming cause, folks.

Weapons of Mass Destruction were found. Lots of 'em. I recall seeing at least three separate news reports over the last few years (not even including Senator Rick Santorum's) saying they found some. Want proof? Bizzyblog did a lot of work compiling various news reports. If you doubt the claim that WMDs were found, read that link.

My Americas readers, if you will listen to what a Canadian thinks about your state of affairs, I would encourage you to vote Republican tomorrow. The only way America can stabilize Iraq is via a Republican Senate & House.