NEWTON'S LAW: DEADLINE ANXIETY IN THE GULF AND THE USELESSNESS OF IT ALL

Some people assume that facing daily deadlines is the most stressful part of newspaper work. That isn't the case.

In fact, deadlines reduce the mechanical task of producing a newspaper to a very simple proposition: you either make a deadline or you don't. If you don't often enough, they tend to shuffle you into another line of work.

The black and white of a deadline (one second you're on time, the next second late) is probably universal. The same can not be said of relaxed manners; the United Nations deadline that passed at midnight has stirred considerable anxiety in me. War doesn't have to happen but it is going to.

It may start between the time this paper is sent to press and the time it finds a newsrack. It may start later this week. Be assured, though, that it will start.

We are left to wonder what this war is about. Demonstrators claim it is about oil. The Bush White House tells us it's not about oil, it's about aggression. Saddam Hussein tells us it's not about aggression, it's about the poor Palestinians. Israel says that if it's about the poor Palestinians, then Saddam might as well load the guns.

The guns are indeed loaded and holding many of them are young Americans who hadn't heard of Saddam Hussein a year ago and care not a whit for geopolitics. When the shells start exploding, will it matter to them the reasons for fighting? All that counts then is training and a cool head to employ it.

It baffles us that human beings, with benefit of history and its many instances of combat waste, are still willing to send their forces to slaughter one another. Is there not some answer to be found?

Wear the shoes of American and international leaders and the answer seems legitimately to be "no," not in this case.

Sure, the demonstrators are right in their sense ... this fight to an extent is about oil. When Iraq pounded away at Iran for eight years, the United States seemed considerably less concerned about stability in the region. Iran had the pounding coming, America felt.

Kuwait, a nation the size of New Jersey, was run by moneyed fools whose vanity didn't extend to self-protection. Still, they were friendly fools and Saudi Arabia was next in line for Iraqi occupation. Few blamed President Bush when he sent Americans to intercede.

There is one insurmountable problem; it is Saddam Hussein. While it would be charitable to say that we just don't understand his perspective on the world, the phrase "you can't argue with a sick mind" seems more fitting.

Every leader who has talked to Saddam has come away shrugging his shoulders. The man will not give an inch in a world dying to acquiesce in the name of peace.

George Bush, a man criticized by his own party for too often abandoning a hard line in favor of common ground, could not even get a letter through to the Iraqi leader, getting scolded for being "impolite" instead.

Javier Perez de Cuellar, head of the most capitulating body on the planet, left a meeting in Baghdad saying there is no hope for peace where Saddam is concerned.

Iraq can not win a war with the United States, which has might, right and world opinion on its side. America armed itself to battle the Soviets; the Iraqis will prove no match. These are the big leaguers heading out for a Double A exhibition game. Trouble is, the bush leaguers, in their suicidal quest, always get in their cuts.

Those cuts, in this case, will have American names. What a waste.

This is the worst kind of deadline, the kind that passes and you wait to see what the consequence will be. Unfortunately, we've seen this result before and predict in no uncertain terms we'll see it again. Still, we can't grow accustomed to its brutality and its uselessness.