This war is, without a doubt, the most controversial issue to hit America since Monica Lewinsky hit President Clinton.  There are certainly many credible and sound arguments both for peace and for war.  I have a few questions to ask, however.  Perhaps the Socratic method will lead me to the answers.

 

How exactly did diplomacy 'fail'?  The last day before the bombings and the fighting began, Tony Blair and George Bush often talked about how diplomacy had failed, and military action was our only choice.  I don't understand how at one point we can just declare diplomacy 'failed'.  We were trying and trying to remove the weapons of mass destruction (hereafter referred to as WoMD) peacefully, with Hans Blix and his UN posse going to Iraq and inspecting the facilities.  Everything was going to plan.  Iraw was cooperating.  We found things Iraq shouldn't have had, and we disposed of it.  All of a sudden, the Bush administration decides that Iraq has had enough time, and they give Iraq 10 days to completely disarm, under the pretense that diplomacy had failed.  How is that?  I don't understand.  Some argue that Iraq has had 12 years to disarm, and 10 days should be plenty.  I say Iraq has a right to self-preservation, and if the Clinton administration and the UN chose not to enforce the laws placed on Iraq, then Iraq has the right to go ahead on its merry old way.  It's horribly unfair to punish Iraq for nto following rules that were not enforced, due to our own irresponsibility.  If Iraq had suddenly refused any more inspections of weapons, or if they had perhaps launched a weapon on someone, then the UN, US, and/or UK would have probable cause to go in and wage war.  Instead, Bush apparently has decided out of nowhere that he wants to go into Iraq and seek the revenge on the man who, as Bush himself stated, 'tried to kill my dad'.  Oh, wonderful.  Let's jeopardize the lives of thousands of American, British, Spanish, Bulgarian, and especially Iraqi soldiers to satisfy a personal vendetta almost a decade old, shall we?  Great thinking!

 

What does 'Iraqi Freedom' mean?  Apparently, the name "OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM" is intended to show that this war is being waged with the intent of bringing freedom to Iraq.  How, exactly, are we doing that?  By sending in hundreds or thousands of tanks, planes, troops, and tomahawk missiles unprovoked, killing hundreds of innocent Iraqis, rather than focusing on the one man the 'coalition' actually wants dead, the one who 'tried to kill [Bush's] dad'.  The only way Iraq is being freed is by killing them.  Their souls are being freed, right?  If you say so.  I, for one, would prefer an oppressed life to death.  I think I can say that from experience; I do, after all, go to high school, and I have yet to kill myself.  Some may argue perhaps, that we're freeing Iraq by removing their oppressive leader, and they'll be free when the war's over, and we establish a democracy there.  In other words, we're 'freeing' Iraq by preventing one man from being able to control the people, and replacing his influence by having them do what the American and British governments want the Iraqi people to do.  How do you know that democracy is the right system for the people?  Democracy isn't always the answer.  The Roman Empire survived and thrived for thousands of years under the dictatorship of the Caesar.  When did that empire collapse?  When Christianity entered the empire, and everyone started thinking for themselves, wanting their own voices to be heard.  Sometimes, a body of people are not ready for democracy.  Whether or not the Iraqi people are ready for democracy is up to them, not the United States, not the United Kingdom, and not the United Nations.  If we truly were so benevolent and concerned about the welfare and freedom of the Iraqi people, we'd leave them alone, and let them live without any foreign intervention.

 

We're protecting our freedom?  I have often heard the war in Iraq and pretty much the entire war on terrorism be described as America 'protecting its freedom'.  Wha???  We'r protecting ourselves and our freedom by attacking some country on the other side of the world who isn't rubbing us the right way?  Oh, great thinking.  That's like me going to someone in the band who doesn't like me very much and beating them up, for fear of what he or she COULD do to me.  When asked why, I could wash my hands of the affair with the simple defense that I was protecting my freedom.  Does that make sense?  No, it doesn't.  Neither does our attack on Iraq, for the same reason.

 

If the White House has so much extra information, why don't they share some, and make their case a little more plausible?  It has often been argued that protesters against the war are idiots, and should keep in mind that Bush, Blair, and their lackeys have intelligence groups sending in reconnaissance information to the White House, and that the government has way more information than the average Joe has.  I will not dispute that.  That is, without a doubt, true.  But if the coalition leaders have so much hidden information, is there nothing they can reveal to the world, to lend even some legitimacy to their cause?  I understand that revealing some information can compromise a lot of strategy, as well as some secret positions of the providers of the recon info.  However, when almost the whole world is against you, does it not make sense to at least give more concrete evidence than "they probably have WoMDs somewhere in that country", so instead of billions of protestors, you can have some supporters, or at the very least, world-wide neutrality?  Surely, not ALL the information gathered is THAT precious.

 

Who are we to go and oust someone else's governement?  Saddam Hussein is the leader of a tyrannical government, who did truly horrible things to infidels and other criminals.  Well, he WAS the leader.  I don't deny that torture and cutting out a person's tongue and other such things that the Iraqi government has done are despicable, horrible things.  However, who are we, the Americans and the Britons, to go and decide the punishments meted out by the Iraqi government are barbaric and evil?  Many of the more developed countries in this world are fiercely against the death penalty, describing it with the same disgust as we describe Iraqi torture techniques.  So what would you do, if we suddenly found fleets of German, Austrian, and Swiss battleships on our shores, invading our country and calling themselves the "Axis of Makes Better Cars Than You Do", hoping to vindicate the American people of its barbaric government that allows the death penalty?  It seems absurd, doesn't it?  It's the same situation, just a different paradigm.  This time, when you're the one being invaded, it doesn't seem fair, but when your country is the one slaughtering people in some other country, your eyes fill up with tears and get blurry every time you hear the national anthem, and you've begun listening to country, because it's the only type of music that has songs supporting the war (I suggest listening to jazz; it's artists and songs remain officially neutral).  Just because the United States is the largest and most powerful nation in the world doesn't mean we're the world's policeman, nor should we be.  America needs to mind its own business for a while, fixing its own problems first, then taking care of the moral problems of other countries.

 

Is no one thinking of the Iraqi people?  Every time a single American soldier dies, his or her face and name are broadcast on the news.  I applaud that; I think it is the least we can do to honor a soldier who died in a vain cause to show his name and face for 3 seconds on national TV.  But what about the Iraqis?  Soldiers, civilians, or soldiers dressed like civilians, it really doesn't matter, they're all people.  They have families, too.  Somewhere in Iraq, whenever an Iraqi male is killed, there is a mother, wife, a son, and/or a daughter who will bawl their eyes out, because that person they loved is never coming home.  When you watch the news, and hear that coalition bombs have all but wiped out the Republican guard, do you not even feel a cringe of regret and sadness for those people?  Surely your human decency makes you feel something.  Almost every night, just before I go to bed, I sit with my mom and watch the news.  While she and her husband applaud the efficiency and the success of the coalition soldiers, I walk slowly up to room, contemplative of all the death that occurs so willy-nilly outside the shell that is our little town of Henderson, Nevada.  As I lay down and go to sleep, I can't help but cry as I lose consciousness, upset at the constant death that the media so proudly reports.  I think a lot about America at times like that, and 'proud' is probably one of the last words I would use to describe my feelings.

 

 

At this point, I'm sure it is obvious where I stand on the war in Iraq.  It is also quite obvious where I stand on America.  I don't say the pledge of allegiance, and the last time I heard the national anthem being sung, I refused to stand.  Call me a hippie, call me a revolutionary, call me a Communist, I don't care.  I have principles, and I refuse to break them.  I have often heard the phrase, "America: Love It or Leave It", usually said to dissenters like me.  All I say to that is, good idea.  I doubt I'll be living here forever.  This country angers me far too much to put up with it for the rest of my life.