Wednesday, June 8, 2011

War Without End (Or Why We Never Should Have Invaded Iraq)

In former President Bush‘s address to a joint session of Congress in 2001, he said,  “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.“ It is exactly this type of “black-and-white ideology” that led to the decision to declare this war-a war that should have never have occurred in the first place. Of course, there are people that believe otherwise, and their points of view are valid. However, I believe that the war in Iraq was the wrong decision, and for many reasons. To be more concise, there are two main factors that gave rise to this belief: one, the war was initiated under false pretenses, and two, our military focus is in the wrong place.

    The lies of the U.S. Government led many to believe that The Iraq War was not only inevitable, but absolutely necessary. A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
    According to a 2008 article on Yahoo News, “Great controversy emerged when no stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction were found, leading to accusations that the United States, its President George W. Bush in particular, had deliberately inflated intelligence or lied about Iraq's weapons in order to justify an invasion of the country. The Center for Public Integrity asserted President Bush's administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.“    

    The government also said that the decision to strike Iraq was made because it was the heart of terrorism in the Middle East. The reasonable argument was, why tap the vein when we could puncture the heart? Well, because we don’t have a large enough needle. It has been ten years now, and terrorism still runs rampant throughout the Middle East. In addition, I believe this was a war for oil. If we could make Iraq a democracy (not likely), oil would be cheaper and easier to obtain. Or so they tell us. Also,  I think the war is a cover for gaining a controlling interest in oil since the transition to democracy would be orchestrated with the help of the U.S. government. Not to mention that Bush ran the war (and his administration) with “cowboy politics” , which was his personal ideology of “action first, thought second.” This is an unrealistic black-and-white attitude that is too absolute to be logical in the real world. The world is not black or white, but varied shades of gray.

    Secondly, I believe our military focus is in the wrong place. Very quickly, Bush seemed to target Iraq as the reason for all the terrorism in the world. The only thing is that this seemed to be the military response to Al-Qaeda’s attack on New York City. Sure, he sent troops into Afghanistan to root-out Bin Laden, but the biggest focus had been on Iraq and Hussein, who has no discernable connection to Al-Qaeda (a claim the government made, but could not back up). Although Hussein was a tyrannical dictator who needed to be stopped, he did not directly harm America the way Al-Qaeda did, and all the terrorism that went on there was mostly inner terrorism--i.e., violence contained within the Middle East. The real threat is Al-Qaeda. They hate America and clearly have the intelligence to launch a massive attack from within our borders. Bush wanted to hit terrorism at its heart, but even if the objectives in Iraq were to succeed, Al-Qaeda is not in Iraq. Even if they had been, they are not anymore. So, if the enemy runs, the tactic should be to follow. Even a child of five knows the “follow the bad guy” tactic. But no, we stayed in Iraq. Even if we did achieve “victory” there, we will not have achieved victory over Al-Qaeda. Despite the fact that Bin Laden has since been killed, his terrorist organization is still strong. In fact, the murder of Bin Laden has apparently strengthened their resolve and  rekindled their hate of America. The only thing we will have gained from an Iraq victory is cheaper oil, and maybe a little help in the search for Al-Qaeda. But they will still be out there, they will still hate us, and we will likely be in such dire straits in terms of our economy, it would actually be an ideal moment for them to launch another attack against us. That’s because we will be weak, vulnerable, and even less prepared for an attack than we were on 9/11. Although President Obama seems to be shifting focus away from Iraq, we still have troops there. It almost seems like this war will never end.
     Is all of this because our former president had something to prove? Or because he wanted to succeed where his father had failed? Who can say? The Iraq War has done nothing but damage our economy and cost us the lives of nearly 4,500 soldiers (iCasualties.org). It’s time for it to end. It’s time to put the focus where it belongs, on the real threat: an international terrorist organization with the ways and means to initiate large-scale attacks on its enemies. If we keep our eyes on the prize, perhaps we can eventually bring down the beast; but we can’t do it in Iraq, and we can’t do it alone. And most of all, we can’t expect to do it at the cost of our damaged economy.


References

Silverstein, Ken. (2007). The Al Qaeda Clubhouse: Members Lacking (Harper's Magazine).Retrieved from Harpers.org: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/07/sb-al-qaeda-new-members-badly-needed-1151963690

iCasualties.org. (2011). http://www.icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Transcript of President Bush’s Address (2001). Retrieved June 2, 2010 from http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/
QUOTE: “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.“


Weapons of Mass Destruction and Other Lies (2008). Retrieved June 2, 2010 from http://news.yahoo.com/news/us/story/ap/20080123/
QUOTE: “Great controversy emerged when no stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction were found, leading to accusations that the United States, its President George W. Bush in particular, had deliberately inflated intelligence or lied about Iraq's weapons in order to justify an invasion of the country. The Center for Public Integrity asserted President Bush's administration made a total of 935 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq's alleged threat to the United States.“


Associated Press (2008). Study: Bush led U.S. to War on ‘False Pretenses’. Retrieved June 2, 2010 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22794451/
QUOTE: A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks. The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

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