The Scoop: With Iraq in hand, attacks should stop
I stood by and didn’t say much of anything when U.S. leaders decided it was in the best interest of Americans to conquer Iraq. As someone who favors peace over war, good thoughts over bad, cooperation over cut throat, I don’t ever see a scenario where I’d endorse a pre-emptive attack such as the one we are currently finishing in Iraq.
Instead of protesting, I figured my energy would be better served to give full-hearted support to the men and women fighting for this country — not questioning the policies of the leaders who sent them to war in the first place.
It’s interesting folks like President Bush and Vice President Cheney are eager to blow up another country, so long as they are not the ones in danger of losing their lives. It’s also interesting how they both wormed their way out of military service themselves, with Bush conveniently going AWOL from the National Guard for one year during the Vietnam War.
So I find it of note that America is now contemplating further military action in the Middle East. Now that we’ve destroyed the better part of Iraq, President Bush is considering similar measures against Syria and Iran. I suppose Bush believes the U.S. president who takes over the most countries wins.
The very fact Bush is considering war against more countries makes me question our whole reasons for being in Iraq in the first place. According to the President Bush version, America had no choice but to attack Iraq. Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, we were told, and unless we struck him first, he would likely strike us.
Thus, the U.S. attacked Iraq in pre-emptive fashion, using the logic that national security would be jeopardized by waiting a moment longer. This was not a war for oil, we were constantly reminded. This war had nothing to do with the history of the first President Bush and the Gulf War he led over a decade earlier.
This was a war to knock out Saddam Hussein and capture his weapons of mass destruction. Now that Saddam is unaccounted for, and his massive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons has not materialized, we are told this is a war to liberate Iraq. It’s a war to bring democracy into their country. Now, we are being told, we need to conquer Syria and Iran and bring democracy to those nations too.
I say enough is enough. It’s not our place — or the right thing to do — to attack other countries so we can try to install democracies there. Judging by the last presidential election, we have a hard enough time maintaining democracy here.
We are trying to ram our customs and our government down the throats of countries who might not want it. For all the talk of government waste and government corruption that supposedly takes place every day in this country, we sure are eager to push our ways on others.
If we invade Syria and Iran, I’m curious to see how many more people we will be obliged to “liberate.” How many dictators across the globe are we going to overthrow under the guise of democracy?
I held my tongue while we invaded Iraq. But if we go any further, we will be witnessing a military nightmare.
We can’t patrol the globe destroying every country which could one day present a threat to the United States. If that’s sound logic, the rest of the world could turn that reasoning around and be justified in attacking us immediately. When that happens, we call it terrorism. Yet when we attack another country, we call it liberation.
President Bush would be wise to abide by the popular saying and quit while he’s ahead. If he truly has the best interests of America at heart, Bush will stop while people still think he’s the good guy.
(James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)