My views on Iraq

As I sat down to check out the newspaper today, I read stories about Iraq and the terrible casualties that are happening there. It seems as if we could write one story about horror, and then just reprint it on the back page every single day. Some of the low-lights of the story are as follows; “Mortar rounds crashed in the U.S. controlled Green Zone on Tuesday – the second such barrage in a 12-hour span – and gunman ambushed Shiite travelers as part of attacks that killed at least 44 people nationwide.” Another one says, “At least 11 Shiites were killed and three wounded after attackers flagged down their bus near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad. About 45 minutes later, gunmen opened fire on civilian cars about six miles to the north near Latifiyah, killing three people and wounding five.” Yet another says, “At least 23 tortured bodies also were found around Iraq – 15 in Baghdad.” The amount of Iraqi’s killed in March was 1,872, and in April 1,501.

After reading this article I try to relate these numbers to the life that we have here in the United States, and I try to make sense of the critics to our involvement in Iraq. Can you imagine the blood shed of the civilians in Iraq if we weren’t there? I am firmly convinced that Iraq would be run by these terrorists and they would have a full country at their disposal to use as a weapon. How can we become involved with a country and create a sense of hope with sensible, loving Muslims, and then leave them to be overthrown by cold-blooded killers. Are people in our country willing to have the blood of an entire civilization on their hands? Is it not imperative that we win this war and transform Iraq from a country filled with Barbarians to a country filled with entrepreneurs, religious leaders, educators, respected political figures and a governing force that is able to control the few barbarians that are left?

We cringe at the fact that 33 college students could be killed in a cowardly shooting rampage, the worst of its’ kind in the 231 year history of our country. Yet, attacks that kill 44 Iraqi’s is back page news and not enough evidence for certain leaders of our country to maintain our presence in Iraq and stay there with the determination to be victorious over a ruthless enemy? How can it be that we have such broken hearts over 33 of our own, but we are so care free about 23 tortured bodies being found in another country?

To me, it doesn’t add up. To me, it seems as if politics and personal gain have become so important within our country that the actual severity of this conflict has been put on the back burner. The point is no longer what is best for our country; it has become what is best for our “party.”

Does it scare anyone else that these same people who torture their own, would be and have been, celebrated for doing worse to us? Does anyone remember people dancing around in the streets cheering when 3000 of our own died in America? Do other people realize this? Do other people realize that we have soldiers giving their lives on foreign soil because they know they are eliminating an enemy that wants to kill their family on their home soil? Do they get the credit they deserve?

The answer is no. Instead of celebrating the fact that we have heroes fighting for us in a very volatile country, we are debating funding of those same troops because of a deadline for withdrawal.

Can you imagine if we pulled out of WWII because of a deadline to defeat Hitler? How about a deadline to defeat slavery? How many things in our history took a tremendous amount of time and only through persistence, were we able to prevail?

Because of this negativity and lack of support, our troops are viewed as victims of a careless leader who just wants to fight a war for the heck of it. It’s easy to sit back here and say that you want the troops to come home. That’s the popular decision. It’s difficult to see the numbers of American’s dying and making the “unpopular” decision of leaving them in harms way, but you have to, because you know that the future of this country depends on it. Can you imagine this whole conflict with a unified country that is 100% focused on willing this war? If we had 2 parties that had the same goal because of the consequences of failure, I know that our country would be behind our troops 100% and I also know that our troops would feel that support even though they were thousands of miles away.