This is a tough question. So.. let's look at both sides.
Side one - Yes
Let's pose some questions.
1) How many Iraquis died daily under Saddam Hussein?
2) When all is said and done, will the Iraquis be better off after the conflict?
3) With oil as a major concern in our world, do we want that oil under the control of other nations?
4) What other nation is willing to let the Iraqi people to keep their revenue from oil?
5) With all the oil Iraq has, won't Iraq eventually be as rich as Dubai?
6) Wouldn't it be nice if the US had a base convenient to the tumultuous middle east?
7) Don't more Iraqis want to be free than under the control of radical Islam?
8) Are we willing to let millions of innocent be slaughtered while we pull out?
9) Didn't Iraq hold down the ambitions of Iran? Don't we still need to hold Iran's ambitions at bay?
10) Doesn't the Iraq conflict keep the terrorists off our shores?
If the answers to these questions are: 1= thousands(average), 2= yes, 3= no, 4= none, 5=yes, 6= yes, 7= yes, 8= no, 9= yes. Then the Iraq war is justified. 10=yes.
Side 2 = No, the Iraq war is not justified.
1) Doesn't the Iraq war weaken our forces?
2) Is the US just there "for the oil?"
3) Is the threat of terrorism a political play?
4) Are more terrorists being made because of this conflict?
5) The Iraqi people can take care of themselves and will accomplish peace between their warring factions.
6) President Bush got us into this war, not because of weapons of mass destruction but because he wanted to finish what his dad started. (Saddam tried to have Bush's daddy assassinated.)
7) The weapons manufacturers promote this war because they can make a lot of money.
8) Do the Iraquis resent being force fit into a society they don't want? (Capitalism.)
9) Does Iraq want us out?
If the answers are 1=yes, 2=yes, 3=yes, 4=yes, 5=yes, 6=yes, 7=yes, 8=yes, 9=yes then
the Iraq war is unjustified.
As I look at these two scenarios, I want to think the Iraq war was justified. I feel there are fewer Iraqi people dieing today, even under war conditions, than died or were tortured under Saddam Hussein. I also feel there were weapons of mass destruction (you can find sites on the internet that have maps showing where they are.) Russia supplied them and helped Saddam move them to Syria and bury them in Iraq near the Syrian border. Do we really want to finger Russia as the culprit behind Iraq's WMDs? That's a war we don't want to start!
6/1/2007 Just heard another reason why we got into the Iraq war. Regardless of some of the supposedly inaccurate reasons why we got into the war, the war was inevitable because Saddam Hussein kept defying U.N. Sanctions. The course was set and Iraq had to be dealt with. In other words, sanctions didn't work, the inspections were interfered with, and in the end, Iraq had to be dealt with. (Remember Kuwait?)
Our world is different now. One of the tactics of war is the spread of mis-information. We can be led down a path that is directed by our enemies that sounds so very convincing (with forgeries of "official documents", carefully edited videos, and outright lies). Look at this website and look at the headlines. There is an overall picture that comes out that leads me to believe we're being fooled by carefully crafted "news". Doesn't the progression seem kinda weird to you?
Conspiracies? YOU BETCHA! Are they true? YOU BETCHA Do they have an impact? YOU BETCHA.... BUT.... doable? NOT A CHANCE! Our government is too big to keep any conspiracy under wraps. How can we keep a conspiracy secret with circa 21 million government employees involved? Especially when most government employees are honest, dedicated, responsible, fine people.
I hate the idea that we lost circa 4000 of our troops in the 4+ years of the war, but I wonder how many Americans would be dead if we didn't focus the terrorists away from our shores.
(We lost more than 50,000 US troops in Vietnam in a shorter period of time.)
I lost a brother in Vietnam and it took me decades to bring my grief to a manageable level so I empathize with all of our patriotic families who lost loved ones in Iraq. May they always be remembered in history as heroes.
Enough for now.
I'll spew tomorrow. God Bless you all.
1 comment:
Your argument is thought provoking, however I disagree with your assumption that there is a 9/11, Iraq connection. Although both sides can be argued, there is lack of evidence to support such a connection. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post contends that "the Sept. 11 commission reported that is had found no 'collaborative relationship' between Iraq and Al qaeda" (A01). The once believed connection between the attacks on September 11, 2001 and Iraq have been dismissed.
On the day of the attacks, 15 of the 19 plane hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, so why are we not at war with them? The lack of evidence to support a connection leads me to believe that there really is not one. If we look deeper into what is really going on we can all see that this "connection" was used as a means to engage in war.
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