But in a larger sense there is a future liability we all fail to fully understand. That is, in the future many groups and individuals will be motivated to create such weapons to meet their objectives.

These growing motivations result from 6 billion people pursuing normal lives. That is the behaviors of having and providing for their families unintentionally determines the scarcity and conflict which creates these motivations.

If we want to do something worthwhile to stop the conflict in our world, we must demand that each person (president, statesman, scientist and fruit picker) address this longer term view.

I don't know if Iraq already has, or will have in a couple of years, a dirty bomb, or a biological weapon pre-positioned in every major city around the globe. But I know this type of defense or offense is very powerful.

I know the number of people, and the amount of money needed to create and install these weapons is decreasing. It will not be long before someone with a lot less talent and resources than Saddam Hussein will be able to create such a threat and then make demands with impunity.

We can argue about the irresponsibility of acting unilaterally against a party working toward the development of weapons of mass destruction. We can argue about the irresponsibility of existing powers to let these weapons be built and deployed.

Everyone must understand and respond to what our collected behaviors are doing to the human community and to earth.

Failure to achieve this understanding will determine our future much more than stopping a president who wants to protect the home front from a Saddam Hussein or joining a statesman that wants to protect national coalitions from such a president.

It is this understanding that will show us that demanding peace from leadership is a futile gesture. If we want peace we must demand from ourselves the personal acts that will create it.