Taps at Arlington National Cemetery by Free for Commercial Use
Tell me again, why did we invade Iraq?
Last
week marked the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For most of us, Iraq is "Mission
Accomplished" and we are on to other things.
For many others, on both sides, still fighting injuries, demons, and the
loss of loved ones, this war remains a deep, festering wound. I don't want to rehash who lied to get us in
that war, and whether or not removing one man from power was worth the
sacrifice of the 4,486 American service members who died in Iraq, the 32,000
wounded, or the estimated 150,000 to 1,000,000 dead and wounded Iraqis and a
country still recoiling and rebuilding from our incursion. I'm not even going to argue that the $1
trillion dollars spent destroying Iraq's infrastructure would have been better
spent rebuilding ours. I'd just like to
know why we went to war.
I'm
old now, but my generation was young, aware, and vocal as we slogged through
the Viet Nam War. Unfortunately, we were
also powerless, with long hair. We
couldn't vote until we were 21 so, even though we yelled at the top of our
lungs about the insanity of that war, nobody heard what we had to say. As a result, we now have a war memorial in
front of the old courthouse on Texas Street inscribed with the names of 62 of
Fairfield's sons. I grew up with these
kids in a much, much smaller version of Fairfield. These chiseled names once had faces,
feelings, and futures, and many were my friends.
When
America invaded Iraq ten years ago, my generation had long since cut their hair
and we were in charge, running America's businesses and sitting in seats of
power. But we sat silent as our
government once again sent our children into yet another senseless war. With Viet Nam, we really didn't know that our
government had lied about the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" until years later, but
with Iraq, most of us knew George W. Bush was wrong about weapons of mass
destruction and that Rice and Cheney's mushroom clouds would be impossible to
create if there was no yellowcake uranium concentrate.
Five-star
general and President, Dwight Eisenhower said, "Preventive war was an invention
of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even
listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing." But George W. Bush made pre-emptive invasions
official U.S. policy when he said, "As a matter of common sense and
self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are
fully formed." We were told that we must
silently and blindly follow our president for we cannot possibly know what he
knows. But 65 years ago, Abraham Lincoln
warned us: "If today he (the President) should choose to say he thinks it
necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could
you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading
us;' but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't.'"Kings had
always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending
generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object."
War,
and its terrible costs, must be considered only when the consequences of not
fighting are greater. Our men and women
in the military may not agree with the policies of politicians, yet they risk
their lives carrying them out and that selfless trust deserves reciprocation
with truth from our leaders.
This
war with Iraq started as we were entering the age of the internet using desktop
computers. Since then, communication has
evolved rapidly and the world is more tightly knit with hand-held devices
capable of instantaneously transmitting and receiving audio, video, and text
from anyone, almost anywhere in the world.
Hopefully, future false flags, lies, and irrational arguments leading to
war will become ever more evident and unconvincing. These same tools will also enable us to see
that our potential enemies are very much like us and that it is not the people
of one nation who wish to harm the people of another, but rather politicians
put into their positions of power by those who profit from war.
