Let's just come right out and say it. The emperor has no clothes!

The Bush Administration told us the reason we had to invade Iraq is because of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Now we know that argument won't hold water.

History may ultimately prove Bush right, just as the Venona Papers substantiated our worst fears of Soviet infiltration - 50 years after the fact. But not now. However, as long as we're being truthful, let us also admit a lack of historical perspective.

Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. Other Western societies chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. As Victor Davis Hanson points out, "how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity."

The Magna Carta gave us Habeus Corpus. The Bill Of Rights gave us the right to assemble and worship free from persecution. We've evolved to express views "formerly censored by clerics and the state." Women can vote, divorce, dress or marry as they please.

Yet we have a present day institution that has lopped off the heads of Nick Berg, Daniel Pearl, as well as other innocents. It squelches freedom of speech and religion in the most oppressive, sometimes violent manner. Gays are executed. Women are required to cover themselves in public and have limited rights.

The frightening part is that they want to bring Sharia law to western countries. Why does this matter in West Seattle? We soon we get to vote for either our favorite liberal ideologue Jim McDermott, or for a change. If you vote for McDermott, you endorse a man that stood before cameras in Baghdad and sang the praises of Saddam Hussein. Now we know that Hussein murdered upwards of a million of his fellow citizens. Even if Bush (and most of Congress) was mistaken on weapons of mass destruction, he ousted a brute. But more importantly he has brought the fight to extremist terror that would role back societal progress a thousand years.

I can argue that the liberal backlash against the Iraq war and Bush is intellectually dishonest (like it's OK to oust a brutal dictator in Kosovo if you're a Democrat, but not a vicious tyrant in Iraq if you're a Republican) but more importantly it encourages the majority of West-Seattleites to re-elect a man who's a pariah even within his own ranks in Congress. Will you vote for a man whom Al-Jazeera gave "special recognition" in its 2005 wrap-up?

I apologize upfront for not being respectful. However, a man who has voted against anti-predator laws, voted against strengthening laws against drug smugglers, sides with the Supreme Court on seizure of private property for developers, and is endorsed by Fidel Castro is not deserving of my esteem.

Quoting Victor Davis Hanson again, "civilization is forfeited with a whimper, not a bang." Supporting our incumbent congressman from the 34th district is akin to doing nothing when the Goths came to sack Rome.

Thomas Shafer

Seaview