GROUND ZER0, New York, N.Y.--Dec. 15, 2003-- The Beast of Terror is dead in Iraq.  And with his "death" was found the Weapons of Mass Destruction the world is searching for in a nation ruled by tyranny and oppression for the past 24 years.

      Saddam Hussein wasn't captured just by U.S. Special Forces on Saturday, December 13, 2003.   He was captured by the Sentinels of Vigilance, the mothers and fathers, the grandparents, brothers and sisters, cousins, and loved ones of all the Children's Children's Children in all the parts of the world where tyranny and oppression exists.
      The great Weapons of Mass Destruction are not those bacteria or viruses or nuclear elements that threaten the physical safety and security of individuals, families, neighborhoods and societies.  The great WMD are those that rob a child of hope, that torture a parent into a state of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to act against the oppression that limit a child's right to evolve, to become the man or woman he or she wishes to become.
      Fear, Intimidation and Complacency, the Triads of Terrorism, are the real Weapons of Mass Destruction employed by Saddam Hussein, and all other tyrants of his ilk, who have attempted throughout history to suppress the rights of others while expanding their own selfish causes.
      When Saddam was found in a rat hole near a mud hut, hunkering in a six-by-eight-food spider-trap hole in the ground, he symbolized all the WMD the world has argued about existing in Iraq.
       America and its allies knew the real WMD was always Saddam Hussein, just as it knows that men like Kim Jong Il of North Korea is his country's worst WMD.

       There are other such WMD controlling nations around the globe.  They seek to infect their societies with the germs of tyranny and oppression, often using torture, rape, imprisonment and execution as their bacteria, their virus, their nuclear threats to keep the people on their knees, begging for favor, fearful of challenging the right of the leader.
       In North Korea the villagers boil grass to eat and many starve as the tyrant who heads the nation feasts on power and puffs his chest in challenge to the world that he is willing to wage war on anyone who tries to depose him.   
        He is not alone.

       In other nations the people's minds are infected with the same bacteria of Terrorism, haunted by the same viruses of tyranny and oppression were they to oppose their leadership and seek equal rights against leaders who use threats to them, their families, their loved ones to rule the land.
        The capture of Saddam Hussein was the capture of the Triad of Terrorism in that land--the capture of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.   
        Prior to Saddam's cowardly surrender where he put up no fight, did not attempt to take his own life or go out in a blaze of gunfire standing up for his beliefs, the world was attacking America from without and within.
        Global Nations of Complacency were firing cheap shots at America, arguing that it had no right to attack Iraq, that it was the "aggressor" seeking to rule imperialistically the world.
         Inside America, political opportunists attacked the Administration, hoping to polarize more and more Americans against the war in hopes they would gain votes by Terrorizing the Principles of Freedom and Democracy we fight for, and have always fought for, for citizens of oppressed nations.
         The arguments focused on the lack of finding Weapons of Mass Destruction.   It was America's position that Saddam was harboring them, and the invasion of Iraq in March was to free the world of their threat.

          The evidence of their presence was historic.   Saddam gassed tens of thousands of Kurds.   He was known to be seeking nuclear capability, part of his role as the "defiant leader" of the Middle East, bent on keeping the West from instilling democracy into a land that thrives on using Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to keep the people deprived of the freedoms and liberties sweeping the world.
          Now, the proof of the WMD are clear.
          They are embodied in Saddam Hussein.
          He is the bacteria, the virus, the nuclear elements of violence against the innocent.   He is the symbol of corrupted power, and the icon of a man willing to waste his entire nation to serve his own personal goals.
          In the end, he died as a coward dies.  He begged for mercy.   "I will negotiate!  Don't shoot me!"
          He spoke those words without a fight.  He didn't try and kill himself or go out in a gun battle with American troops.    He was begging in the end, as his victims must have begged for mercy before he raped them, or tortured them, or executed them for opposing him.
          Anyone who thinks the Fear, Intimidation and Complacency he created in the minds of millions of Iraqis over the past two decades didn't poison the future of a nation as viciously as poison gas might have killed the bodies of the citizens need to look deeper into their own mirror.

         A Weapon of Mass Destruction is something that destroys life indiscriminately.   When you kill the hope of a child to grow into anyone he or she wishes to evolve into, or, you rob a child of hope that prosperity can be achieved, or you threaten a parent that his or her children will be tortured or raped if they defy the government or oppose a point of view, you poison society.   You infect the future of the Children's Children's Children.
         Further, when you teach the children to hate, to abhor, to attack others because of their beliefs, or their nationality, or their ethnicity, you pervert the right of parenthood.   You become the bacteria of human decay.
         Saddam Hussein is the Weapon of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
         But he is not alone.
         There are many others like him in the world, some not so prominent in notoriety.
         There are parents of children here in the United States as well as the world who manage their children with the same Weapons of Mass Destruction as Saddam Hussein did a nation.

        They use Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to keep their children in line.  Some abuse their children physically, others emotionally.   "You're no good.  You're stupid.   Don't bother me.   I wish you were never born.  I'm too busy.    Shut your mouth."
          Many parents fall victim to being Parents of Terrorism.   They strike so much Fear in their children that the children hide in holes not unlike Saddam's.   They fear they will never achieve the lofty goal of being loved by those who degrade them.     They become Emotional Terrorists.   Many become bullies, like Saddam, Terrorizing their children and others.
         They become Weapons of Mass Destruction, indiscriminately spreading the bacteria and virus of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency to others.
         Yes, we all may gloat over finding Saddam and the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
         But we must be wary.
         The Beast of Terror is still out there.

       We must be Sentinels of Vigilance, fighting the Weapons of Mass Destruction he leaves behind.    We must use Courage to conquer Fear, Conviction to fight Intimidation and take Right Actions that benefit the Children's Children's Children rather than fall into a state of Complacency where we do nothing to grow and evolve.
        We might have captured Saddam and cornered the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but the battle isn't over.
        To keep ourselves ready for the next battle, we all need to become Sentinels of Vigilance.  We need to make sure our Weapons of Mass Destruction--our Fear, Intimidation and Complacency--is defused.
        We can do this only when we take the Pledge of Vigilance daily, and live by the Principles of Vigilance.    When we seek this as a goal, we commit ourselves to defuse the Weapons of Mass Destruction in ourselves and our children.
        Only then will the world be safe from Terrorism.