T-MINUS 48 HOURS TO WAR

If there was any doubt about it before the speech, now there is none. If Saddam Hussein and his sons do not leave Iraq by the day after tomorrow, then President George W. Bush is ready to roll.

The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.

Well said. Bush didn't mention France by name, but then the UK's UN Ambassador Jeremy Comstock already made that blunt point this morning. The window for diplomacy has closed. And however you want to look at it, there has been more than enough time for the fence-sitters to make up their minds. Whether you start the clock in 1979 (which it must be said, even the US did not), 1991 or 2001, Saddam Hussein has made it abundantly clear that he will keep on maiming and killing and may in the future do so on a larger scale. If the UN won't see this, then the UN must step aside.

But better still was his message to the Iraqi people -- acknowledging that some could hear him on a radio translation, he addressed them directly. (He did not, as I guessed earlier, address Saddam in the second person -- I should have considered an important fact: By now if not before, Bush considers Saddam a non-person.) He assured the Iraqi citizens that as American forces enter the country they will bring food and medicine. Bush did a similar thing in his Axis of Evil SOTU last year: He spoke past the corrupt leadership to the people (in that speech it was to the pro-American majority of Iranians), and stood with them against their hated dictators.

Bush also spoke to the Iraqi military:

If war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your life.

He reasserted that if they do not fight against coalition forces, they will not be harmed. (Did you know American troops have been taking Arabic lessons for the past few weeks? They're learning to say things like "Do you have any weapons?" and "Are you surrendering?" Well, it wasn't in the speech, but I just remembered it now.) Another key point came during this section. In addition to giving them a chance to avoid the same fate as Saddam, Bush (approximately) said:

Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people.

I sure hope that Noam Chomsky and Dennis Kucinich were listening to that.

Within a few hours, pundits with a transcript, better education and more sleep will expand on these points. But this is my initial reaction, and it was a magnificent address. It was a stark choice for Saddam and a sincere promise to Iraqis; we are now less than two days' time from the commencement of a historic battle, one whose consequences may be greater than any military engagement since Vietnam, and whose results may be more beneficial than any war since WWII.

That's all for Armed Prophet tonight. This is the bloggingest day so far in the two-and-a-half months since the site's launch, and until the war is over, expect to see a similar level of posting. Armed Prophet pledges to be your first source of information about the war as it unfolds. See you in the morning.