Put yourself in the mind of a 12-year-old who has started to read newspapers and to watch the TV news. A 12-year-old who is taking a keen interest in the big wide world around him. A 12-year-old who finds himself bombarded on a daily basis with talk of war, writes Miriam Donohoe
Across the Atlantic this 12-year-old hears George Bush boast that he is going to take Saddam out.
Across the Irish Sea, he hears Tony Blair support the US campaign on the basis that Iraq is producing chemical and biological weapons, and has military plans to use them.
There is such a 12-year-old living in our house, who is full of concern over what looks increasingly like war against Saddam Hussein. This 12-year-old's questions are relentless these days.
Why is George Bush such a bully? Why does he always want to be at war? Why don't they send in people to arrest Saddam instead of bombing the country and killing innocent people? Wasn't bombing Afghanistan enough for Bush? What good does war do anyway?
Now please don't get the impression that our son is avoiding boyhood pursuits and tuned into every news bulletin on radio and TV. Thankfully, his new secondary school, the Championship Manager game on his computer and playing soccer on the green in our estate occupy most of his time.
But every time he switches on the TV, he comes back to George Bush, and is displaying some strong anti-American sentiments. We have had to tick him off for calling the US President some colourful things in recent times.
Some people suggest that having lived abroad for 18 months has made him prematurely worldly wise. A backpacking holiday this summer in South-East Asia, where he visited war museums in Vietnam and Cambodia, certainly left an impression. He simply doesn't like America and this man Bush.
I have asked friends if their pre-teen sons and daughters are displaying the same unnerving dislike of America and fear of impending war. The answer is Yes. One friend's 11-year-old daughter is quite obsessed about it.
We try to answer all our son's questions in as unbiased a way as possible. The best thing we can do as parents is present him with some facts.
For one, despite the war dossier published by Tony Blair in the House of Commons on Tuesday, there is still a lack of substantial evidence that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
George Bush and Tony Blair cite Iraq's failure to comply with UN Security Council resolutions as the reason for going to war. But they conveniently forget the fact that Turkey and Israel have got away with ignoring UN resolutions for years. And no action has been taken against those two countries. Saddam's chemical weapons are similar to Agent Orange which was liberally used by the US in the Vietnam War. Their after-effects are still apparent today.
There has already been a decade of economic sanctions against Iraq that has destroyed the country's infrastructure and resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of its people. The UN has reported that an estimated 800,000 Iraqi children are suffering from chronic malnutrition due to sanctions. The infant and child mortality rate in Iraq has doubled since the Gulf War.
The 43 days of bombing during the Gulf War left 100,000 dead and caused $170 billion of damage in Iraq. Sanctions have meant that much of that damage has never been repaired. There is a chronic lack of safe water, housing, food and medicine.
A new invasion of Iraq would require more extensive bombing than in 1991, and ultimately the conquest of Baghdad, a city of nearly four million people. There would be huge civilian casualties.
Yet there has been little discussion in recent weeks about the consequences for innocent people who would find themselves on the wrong end of US and British cluster bombs, tanks and missiles.
Just as in Afghanistan, which is on the brink of anarchy months after the US routed the Taliban, few people are asking about what would happen after the war. Would Iraq be left with a puppet regime in Baghdad, headed up by one of the Iraqi opposition leaders being supported by the US - just as Saddam was when he came to power?
We have, of course, also pointed out to our 12-year-old that Saddam Hussein is probably one of the most evil men in the world and one capable of unspeakable terror.
But that doesn't make war right.
Our son has been asking us what is Ireland's position on Iraq. We have explained that we are a temporary member of the UN Security Council, and if we wanted we could make a principled and moral stance on the issue.
We have failed to do so.
The Government is arguing that a vote for the Nice Treaty would be a good way to guarantee peace and greater prosperity across Europe. But it hasn't been shouting concern for the plight of innocent Iraqis further east.
Tomorrow a huge anti-war demonstration takes place in London. Thousands are expected to take to the streets. My son has been asking if a similar protest has been organised In Ireland, and if so could he join the march.
At this stage, I think I'll bow to his request to install Sky Sports. It may divert him from the news channels, and all this depressing talk of war.