Now Entering Iraq: No Outlet
Well it has been a while since I have written. My wife had a baby on November 19th, and I think I may have slept a total of around seven hours since then. But everything went well nonetheless.
It is amazing that anything has been able to keep my mind off of political issues for even two minutes, much less one whole month, but it has been that long since I have sat here working myself into a frenzy over every cholesterol-ridden politician I see on TV. But this morning, listening to NPR, the rage returned over a topic that has been and will be continually beaten to death, but only because it is of the utmost imporance.
What the hell is going on in Iraq? I was thinking back to 2002-2003 when I was going to Manhattanville College right outside New York City. George Bush and Co. were in the process of leading us into war with Iraq, using 9/11 as justification. I, along with many of my fellow students, ardently opposed any military action against Iraq. Even with no access to classified documents, using only logic and easily obtained information, we knew Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States, and we also knew that we could not succeed in establishing a successful government there. A successful revolution must be one of the people, not of an outside force.
Amazing how right we college kids were.
Here is what infuriated me this morning: There is all this talk about Iraq, about sending more troops, evacuating troops, and what to do now. But nobody is looking back and wondering what we should have done in the first place. I think that learning from your mistakes is the sign of a strong individual, and a strong Nation. Why doesn't any politician have the guts to go on national television and say, "We shouldn't have gone in there in the first place." That's all a lot of us want. I would like someone to acknowledge that the millions of us who disagreed with the invasion from the get-go were right. The reason for war that was given to the American public and our representatives was an "imminent threat" of nuclear or chemical invation by Iraq. Back in 2002, President Bush said that the next warning sign may be a "mushroom cloud over New York City." Millions of Americans, including many intelligence officials, disagreed. Now we all know the dissenters were dead right, and if these politicians really want to unite the American public, they need to come to grips with the reality that almost all Americans now understand clearly. That reality is that the war in Iraq was a mistake from the beginning, but now the mess has been made and we need to figure out how to clean it up.
On to the topic of the cleanup... I believe it is virtually impossible. We can send a million soldiers into Iraq to try to kill every single "insurgent" (which is really a resistance, not an insurgency, because these people are fighting on their own home soil). But for nearly every resister we kill, we will unavoidably kill an innocent civillian, and every innocent civilian we kill will create three new resisters. A third party cannot establish a successful democracy, particularly by killing 50,000+ innocent civilians, maiming countless more, and destroying all infrastructure in the process.
Imagine you are living in the New World in the year 1776, and you are a bit angry at the way the far-off British government is treating you. Then, France shows up. They kill half your family, burn your entire city, and tell you they are doing it for your own good. They say they are going to establish a government ruled by the citizens of the New World, and then leave. I would wager all of us would tell France to get the fuck out, thank you very much, but we can take care of ourselves. This is the situation in Iraq.
Sadaam Hussein has been convicted of killing 128 people. This is a heinus act that should not go unpunnished. We have admitted killing a minimum of 30,000 civilians in Iraq, and that figure was one given by our President, who is not known for his tendency to tell the truth. It was also a statistic given over a year ago, and included only deaths directly attributed to conflict (i.e. people who were shot or blown up). It did not inlcude those that died of hunger, thirst, disease, or any of the myriad of other possibilities, nor did it include undocumented deaths, which will inevitably be many in a war-torn country with no established rule or order. It is safe to say the figure is at least double that. What makes it all so disgusting - so vile - is that we now know that going into Iraq was pointless.
There were no WMDs, and there was no "imminent threat" (see my previous post entitled "I must _____ or the terrorists will win!" steadfastness, or just stupidity?" Part 2). So these civilian deaths can hardly be called "collateral damage," or "casualties" because such labels on human lives require a reason for their "sacrifice." That reason was the protection of the American public from a very real threat. That threat turned out to be bogus, and it turns out that our President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defence, among others, knew far more of how baseless this threat was than they originally led us to believe.
So I ask you, who is the greater criminal? Saddam Hussein, or our own president? Which is worse, 128 lives, or 30,000+? Neither is excusable. Our own leaders cannot expected international respect when they have far more blood on their hands that Saddam Hussein.
We will never "succeed" in Iraq. The best American politicans can hope or plan for is another catastrophe, or another war, to take the public's eye off Iraq long enough to install a new ruthless dictator who is friendly to our oil interests, and withdraw our troops quietly. Iraq will be far worse off than it was before, but it won't matter to America if they can keep it off the television. Otherwise, we will be there until every Iraqi is dead.
Leave now, or leave later, we will get the same result, which is Iraq spiraling out of control into factional civil war, and inevitably another dictator. We made a big mess. I just wish someone would admit our fault, then plea for the support they will need from Americans and the international community so that maybe we will have the slighest chance of restoring some semblance of order to the region. Everybody already knows the war was wrong in the first place. Politicians are just ignoring the elephant in the room and making themselves look like complete morons by doing so.
It is amazing that anything has been able to keep my mind off of political issues for even two minutes, much less one whole month, but it has been that long since I have sat here working myself into a frenzy over every cholesterol-ridden politician I see on TV. But this morning, listening to NPR, the rage returned over a topic that has been and will be continually beaten to death, but only because it is of the utmost imporance.
What the hell is going on in Iraq? I was thinking back to 2002-2003 when I was going to Manhattanville College right outside New York City. George Bush and Co. were in the process of leading us into war with Iraq, using 9/11 as justification. I, along with many of my fellow students, ardently opposed any military action against Iraq. Even with no access to classified documents, using only logic and easily obtained information, we knew Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States, and we also knew that we could not succeed in establishing a successful government there. A successful revolution must be one of the people, not of an outside force.
Amazing how right we college kids were.
Here is what infuriated me this morning: There is all this talk about Iraq, about sending more troops, evacuating troops, and what to do now. But nobody is looking back and wondering what we should have done in the first place. I think that learning from your mistakes is the sign of a strong individual, and a strong Nation. Why doesn't any politician have the guts to go on national television and say, "We shouldn't have gone in there in the first place." That's all a lot of us want. I would like someone to acknowledge that the millions of us who disagreed with the invasion from the get-go were right. The reason for war that was given to the American public and our representatives was an "imminent threat" of nuclear or chemical invation by Iraq. Back in 2002, President Bush said that the next warning sign may be a "mushroom cloud over New York City." Millions of Americans, including many intelligence officials, disagreed. Now we all know the dissenters were dead right, and if these politicians really want to unite the American public, they need to come to grips with the reality that almost all Americans now understand clearly. That reality is that the war in Iraq was a mistake from the beginning, but now the mess has been made and we need to figure out how to clean it up.
On to the topic of the cleanup... I believe it is virtually impossible. We can send a million soldiers into Iraq to try to kill every single "insurgent" (which is really a resistance, not an insurgency, because these people are fighting on their own home soil). But for nearly every resister we kill, we will unavoidably kill an innocent civillian, and every innocent civilian we kill will create three new resisters. A third party cannot establish a successful democracy, particularly by killing 50,000+ innocent civilians, maiming countless more, and destroying all infrastructure in the process.
Imagine you are living in the New World in the year 1776, and you are a bit angry at the way the far-off British government is treating you. Then, France shows up. They kill half your family, burn your entire city, and tell you they are doing it for your own good. They say they are going to establish a government ruled by the citizens of the New World, and then leave. I would wager all of us would tell France to get the fuck out, thank you very much, but we can take care of ourselves. This is the situation in Iraq.
Sadaam Hussein has been convicted of killing 128 people. This is a heinus act that should not go unpunnished. We have admitted killing a minimum of 30,000 civilians in Iraq, and that figure was one given by our President, who is not known for his tendency to tell the truth. It was also a statistic given over a year ago, and included only deaths directly attributed to conflict (i.e. people who were shot or blown up). It did not inlcude those that died of hunger, thirst, disease, or any of the myriad of other possibilities, nor did it include undocumented deaths, which will inevitably be many in a war-torn country with no established rule or order. It is safe to say the figure is at least double that. What makes it all so disgusting - so vile - is that we now know that going into Iraq was pointless.
There were no WMDs, and there was no "imminent threat" (see my previous post entitled "I must _____ or the terrorists will win!" steadfastness, or just stupidity?" Part 2). So these civilian deaths can hardly be called "collateral damage," or "casualties" because such labels on human lives require a reason for their "sacrifice." That reason was the protection of the American public from a very real threat. That threat turned out to be bogus, and it turns out that our President, Vice President, and Secretary of Defence, among others, knew far more of how baseless this threat was than they originally led us to believe.
So I ask you, who is the greater criminal? Saddam Hussein, or our own president? Which is worse, 128 lives, or 30,000+? Neither is excusable. Our own leaders cannot expected international respect when they have far more blood on their hands that Saddam Hussein.
We will never "succeed" in Iraq. The best American politicans can hope or plan for is another catastrophe, or another war, to take the public's eye off Iraq long enough to install a new ruthless dictator who is friendly to our oil interests, and withdraw our troops quietly. Iraq will be far worse off than it was before, but it won't matter to America if they can keep it off the television. Otherwise, we will be there until every Iraqi is dead.
Leave now, or leave later, we will get the same result, which is Iraq spiraling out of control into factional civil war, and inevitably another dictator. We made a big mess. I just wish someone would admit our fault, then plea for the support they will need from Americans and the international community so that maybe we will have the slighest chance of restoring some semblance of order to the region. Everybody already knows the war was wrong in the first place. Politicians are just ignoring the elephant in the room and making themselves look like complete morons by doing so.
posted by adampaul at
10:19 AM
1 Comments:
post your entrance essay...it's good and people will like it...okay? okay!
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