Wednesday, March 26, 2008
War in Iraq
I think our troops should be sent back home. This war has been going on for about five to six years now and needs to come to an end. Everyone is emotionally tied to this war and large amounts of money is always being spent. We keep sending more soldiers into this battle not knowing whether they will come out or not. I have some friends fighting in the war as we speak, and I would like to see them come home in one piece. There has been a total of 4,000 deaths, and that is not even including the injuries or permanent scarring these troops will face in their future that is supposively to last for one hundred years. Also the government is wasting too much money in this war and will keep pouring money down the drain until this fighting is over with. Yes, I know the cause of this war was because of the terrorism, and at the time I thought it was a good idea to go to war, but now it is just dragging out and is not even about the terroism factor anymore anyways. It is altogether just a big waste of everyone's time and money.
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4 comments:
There is a rather large problem with the logic in you reasoning. Suppose we were to just up and leave. The whole country of Iraq would not just get torn apart by civil war but all the countries around it would invade and fight over the unprotected territory potentially starting a world war that we would ultimately have to re-involve ourselves in. Not to mention we would actually be helping terrorists if we left because we would be creating a playground for them, and before long they would be flying planes into our office buildings again.
While I agree with some people that we should stay in Iraq, I myself have arrived at that conclusion from a different route of logic. But before I divulge the logic behind by conclusion, let’s first look at a brief history of United States foreign policy from World War II and onward.
Just about every American agrees that we should have gotten involved in World War II. Without our economic aid, Britain might very well have been defeated by Germany, thus greatly reducing the chances of an allied victory. But as history has revealed itself, the allies emerged victorious, but at what cost?
Everyone who lived during the 50s and afterword remembers the Cold War. However, people tend to forget one reason why the Soviet Union was such of a threat. The answer: The United States of America. “What?” you might ask. However, the fact remains true, that many of the weapons and much of the technology that we gave to the Russians during World War II was used against us during the various skirmishes during the Cold War.
However, this is not the end of the story. In order to fight Russia, we decided to use the good ‘ol American tactic of making friends with our enemies to fight the worse common enemy. The new “enemy turned friend?” Iraq. Yes, we gave military supplies and weaponry to Iraq to help them fight Russia.
You might ask yourself what is the point of this history lecture. The answer lies in the reason why I believe we should remain in Iraq; in order to clean up the mess that we made. We were the ones who gave Iraq the weapons in the first place, and we were the ones who invaded Iraq (without the approval of congress, I might add, a similarity to the conflict in Vietnam.) in the first place. Also, under the JFK administration, the United States was the one who helped Saddam Hussein rise to power.
This instance with Iraq brings about a very interesting conclusion, that of the failures of the US foreign military policy. Now before you start picking up stones, I have to relate my story of how I reached this larger conclusion.
This year, the NCFCA (National Christian Forensics and Communication Association) LD (Lincoln-Douglas) debate topic is “Resolved: That the United States of America ought to more highly value isolationism.” Before hearing some of the LD debate rounds this year, I thought much like any other American. I believed that the US was the king at military interventionism and I also believed that every time the US got involved in a foreign conflict we won and greatly helped the “nation in distress,” with the exception of Vietnam.
However, after listening to a particular LD case written by my friend Paul Hastings, I came to a very important conclusion: that the majority of the “monsters” in the world today that we are facing militarily were created by the one and only United States of America.
Just look at the current situation. We are facing a possibly future war with Iran. But whose fault is it that Iran is in its current situation. Ours. First, we tried to “encourage” Iran to become more democratic by allowing their moderately democratic leader, the shah, to fall from power, hoping that a more democratic leader would replace him. The result: the current “president” of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is in power. What about Iran’s weapons that we have come to fear? Those were given to them by…you guessed it…the United States, in order to “help” them fight Russia.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated event. What about the Cuba Missile Crisis during the Cold War? Regrettably, the United States had a hand in this affair, because it actively supported a young leader named Fidel Castro many years earlier.
You might wonder about the current situation in Afghanistan? Unfortunately, the US also played a role in this situation, since the United States actively supported a young Afghanistan leader by the name of Osama Bin Laden in his fight against the Soviets using Jihadist soldiers.
What these instances show us is that by leaving of foreign policy of military isolationism, we have caused evil to fix evil. We fought Germany by helping the Soviet Union, and we fought the Soviet Union by aiding Cuba, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
After examining this brief history of American military interventionism I hope you will agree with me that we should remain in Iraq until we have finished cleaning up our own mess, but not indefinitely. However, the question still remains: how many more failed states will it take before the United States finally learns its lesson and stops creating monsters for it to destroy?
I also believe that the War In Iraq should come to an end- just not an immediate end. I believe the United States should stay in Iraq long enough to stabilize the government, to strengthen their security forces, and to improve their infrastructure and economy. If Iraq is strong enough to support their own military and have a means of supporting it (through its economy and infrastructure) the United States would be able to withdraw more of their troops with less worry of instability in Iraq because a stronger Iraqi military would be able to fend for itself.
If we started withdrawing our troops now, what would we do about insurgent groups? Who will deal with them? The Iraqi military in its current state might not be strong enough to handle these groups. What if insurgent groups decided to attack US military forces while we would be withdrawing? I think we would be more vulnerable because we are pulling out our resources; how can our army fight effectively if it doesn't have enough resources it needs to fight? It is possible that the United States might lose more troops due to an immediate withdrawal due to a possible increase in insurgency and lower resource levels compared to the casualties levels now.
You mention wasting money. The defense industry is part of the economy that the United States spends a lot of money on. Many of the bullets, aircraft, guns, boats, cars, trucks etc. the United States Military using are manufactured in the United States by American companies. So most of this money that is being poured down the drain is being used on American companies.
The issue of staying in or withdrawing from Iraq is a difficult decision to be made for our interests and the interests of others. Hopefully we can pull our troops out and have a stable Iraq.
While i agree with you that we should begin to exit Iraq, I do not think we should do it all at once. We need to strategically exit Iraq and not just pack up and run. Doing so will be really unsafe and could leave Iraq vulnerable to another regime takeover. I also agree with you stating that the United States is spending too much money on the war. Being in the economic situation that the United States is currently in, we could do far better things with the money here. But, I also belive that we have done some good in Iraq. Getting the Taliban out of power in Iraq was one of the few good things that we have done there, and i think the United States is a little safer with them out of power.
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