"Pre-Emptive Wars" are Wars of Aggression!
No U.S. or U.K. flag on this website anymore.

On 20th March, 2003, the first day of the war on Iraq, U.S. and British bombs were dropped on civilians in Iraq.  Until this date, I used a combination of the U.S. flag (Stars and Stripes = Old Glory) and the U.K. flag (Union Jack) to symbolize the English language on this website. However, on that day I questioned the "Glory" and the "Union". Both were treated with contempt by the U.S. and Britain when they entered into an avoidable war.

To start this war was morally wrong, ill timed and of dubious legality. For these reasons I felt compelled to remove the U.S. and U.K. flags from my website. I did that with a heavy heart, thinking of the many friends in the U.S. and the U.K. whose friendship I value highly and hope to retain.

I will use the Canadian flag instead as a proud symbol for the English language. Despite heavy pressure from George W. Bush and his U.S. administration, Canada refused to follow the unilateral cry for war. 

There was no sufficient legal or moral justification to endanger, harm, injure, or kill tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq in order to remove that country's cruel dictator, who was isolated, enfeebled and contained. He and his followers could have been disarmed without war in a reasonable time and without the subsequent toll of dead and injured civilians.

The war on Iraq was fought on a platform of deliberate lies. The Bush Administration mocked the U.N. Weapons Inspectors for not finding the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but now that George W. Bush rules Iraq, he can't find them either! U.S. intelligence officials now say it is becoming increasingly clear that the C.I.A., Pentagon and other agencies did not know as much about the status of Iraq's weapons programs and its ties to terrorists before the war, as U.S. Secretary of State Powell told the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003.

Three weeks after the start of the war, on 9th April, 2003, an editorial by Thomas L. Friedman appeared in the online edition of the New York Times, from which I quote three sentences:
"America broke Iraq; now America owns Iraq, and it owns the primary responsibility for normalizing it. If the water doesn't flow, if the food doesn't arrive, if the rains don't come and if the sun doesn't shine, it's now America's fault. [America]* better get used to it, [America] better make things right, [America] better do it soon, and [America] better get all the help it can get."  * Slight changes made for clarity were put in brackets[ ]

So far Bush's efforts to bring peace to Iraq are pathetic. Imperial America brought anarchy to Baghdad and worsened the already fragile situation in the Mid East!

America, you broke it - you fix it! Don't come crying to us to clean up the mess behind you "under your leadership"! You had ample warnings before the war. Repeated "calls" from US congressional committees - shocked by rising estimates of the costs of occupation - for "more international sharing" of those burdens are useless. Such calls are made, as if international help was available on tap whenever the US should choose to turn the faucet. The world doesn't follow anymore.

Everybody is still welcome to read the English language version of my website and to contact me about matters of family research, regardless of his or her opinion on this war of aggression.

But everybody ought to know where I stand! 

Gerd Hillebrecht
20th March 2003, revised on 15th June 2003