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| A US soldiers answer when asked "Is the Iraq War a waste of time?" |
| 2004-07-27 |
| I guess you could say that the war was a waste of time, if you dislike the American way of life enough to see it destroyed, or you enjoy watching hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered simply because of their ethnic heritage or religious affiliation. Does that answer your question? I know it sounds harsh, but it's the truth, and I'll tell you why, though I warn you that brevity is not one of my strong points. There are a few different themes worth addressing here, and don't you worry,I'll get to all of them. Was the war justified? Well, the current administration gave us three good reasons for going to war with Iraq (again), the only mistake that they made was focusing on the wrong one. Granted, this was thanks very much to the majority of the media, whose obviously antiwar coverage directed the public attention towards the one reason that didn't produce immediate results: WMD. Now, even that platform is slowly eroding from underneath them. It seems like every week we are finding artillery shells and ballistic missiles with a cornucopia of chemical agents hidden in the payloads, and now even Joseph Wilson, the champion of the "Iraq has no nuclear programs" cause, has been completely discredited and is now facing a criminal investigation following confirmed reports emerging that Iraq indeed was trying to purchase Uranium from African countries, and he might even have known about it. But even if all of that isn't enough for you to believe that our very way of life may have been at stake, just think-that is the very least of the reasons we went to Iraq. Any individual who chooses to crawl from the depths of typical American ignorance and crack a newspaper or a magazine knows that the former regime had ties to terrorism, and indeed terrorized their own people. These are the other two reasons we went to war, because of Iraqi support for terrorist groups and, most importantly the gruesome brutality and macabre severity with which he treated his own people. Let me hit the terrorist thing first. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Iraq was most definitely an active supporter of terrorist groups. Although the ties between Iraq, al Qaeda, and other radical Islamic terror groups remain sinuous and tender at best, his support of leftist groups similar to his own Baath party is undisputed. His regime provided bases, training camps and monetary support to Turkish, Iranian, and Palestinian terror groups and harbored terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, and Abdul Rahman Yasin. If you don't think that the former regime supported terror, then you are quite simply uninformed. But the most important reason, the reason that sets this war apart from wars of aggression and imperialism, is the fact that for 30 years, the United Nations has sat back and watched Saddam and his police state commit mass murder in the name of ethnic cleansing. I'd like to believe that if Mr. Bush had focused on this one, public opinion might have swayed in his favor. Unfortunately, the cynic/realist inside of me says that the average American is too self-absorbed to care about hundreds of thousands of people being killed half-a-world away. It's that attitude of apathy, tolerance, and isolationism that helped contribute to the holocaust. I believe, with all of my heart, that it is our duty, our responsibility as the worlds only remaining true superpower, to protect the welfare of those people. I knew what I was doing when I signed up, and I knew what I was doing was right, but it wasn't until I got to Iraq and was stationed in the predominantly Shiia south and had a chance to hear it firsthand, from the people who had survived his tyrannical rule, that I truly understood why we were fighting. Until you see the widows and the orphans, the amputees, the mass graves, the cautious optimism that now beams from eyes too-long clouded by fear could you ever possibly understand. So it comes down to this, if you believe that avenging the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents is a waste of time, or saving the lives of countless others is a waste of time, or preserving our way of life for ourselves and our children is a waste of time, or holding a mass-murderer accountable for his horrific crimes is a waste of time than the answer is yes, it was a waste. If, however, you take the time to look past the pathetic news coverage that creates controversy to sell adspace, and past your own selfish concerns, and past the sacrifices that had to be made, and see for yourself the good that was accomplished by our actions, you'll see that the war wasn't only justified, it was necessary. |
| Posted by:Jaman |
| #3 I just read the transcript of the O'Reilly - Moore interview. I wish a soldier like this could tak on Michael Moore. Unfortunately O'Reilly caves on the WMD issue. Too bad. I guess the shells that we have found just don't count. |
| Posted by: remote man 2004-07-27 6:37:01 PM |
| #2 SH, Dont forget the U.N. That is a moneyhole if every I've seen one. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-07-27 4:49:52 PM |
| #1 I would rather see my tax dollars used to free others than have them flushed down the toilet through "entitlement" spending and needless pork projects in West Virginia. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-07-27 4:32:54 PM |