Some Untimely Thoughts About the War

Before I think twice and lose my nerve, I will put these thoughts out into cyberspace.

President Bush always talks about the war in Iraq as the major front in the war on terror. We are bringing the fight to the enemy so the enemy won’t be able to strike us on American soil. Well, it doesn’t seem very neighborly of the United States to bring our fight into a nation that did not war on us. Didn’t Bush’s father tell him that it doesn’t make us a kinder, gentler nation to do something like that? Did President Bush ask the Iraqi people if it was okay to bring our dogfight with al-Qaeda into their backyard? I mean, if you’re about to have a brawl with some folks, you “step outside,” but you don’t step into someone else’s home!

Again, President Bush always talks about the war in Iraq as the major front in the war on terror. By that, we mean al-Qaeda, of course, because they’re the ones after the United States. That was our fight. Bush and his deputies say the new Iraqi government stands by our side as a major ally in the struggle to defeat terrorists. Well, if that’s true, how come I never hear Nuri Kamal al-Maliki or any of his deputies talking about defeating al-Qaeda? Have you ever heard the Iraqi leaders we prop up speaking as vehemently as President Bush does against those terrorists? Or maybe they are too busy fighting several different wars on terror: Shiite militants versus Sunni militants, Shiite militants against their own kind, and Iraqi democrats versus foes in Iran and Syria that don’t want a democratic Iraq. Oh, and we want Iraqis to help us defeat al-Qaeda, too? What’s in it for them? Was that ever their fight? No wonder we’ve got Sunni and Shiite insurgents warring on our soldiers, who must be wondering whom to protect and whom to shoot.

Before we invaded Iraq, there were no wars going on inside that nation. Now there are five. How many battles are we supposed win at once? We don’t want any part of the sectarian wars, and Iraq doesn’t want any part of our al-Qaeda war. Iraq, in fact, has declared war against our al-Qaeda war and, beyond that, our very presence there. You call that a partnership?

Nevertheless, President Bush has decided to send more American troops to Iraq to fight all of these wars at once, the American war on terror and the wars on Iraqi terror. I guess this finally puts to rest the myth that there ever was a coalition of the willing united in a global assault on terrorism.

When President Bush is not talking about the war in Iraq as the major front in the war on terror, he is talking about it as a mission to spread liberty. We’re there to spread freedom. However, do you ever really hear President Bush and his deputies wax rhapsodic about the ultimate sacrifices our soldiers have made to protect Iraqi freedom? Do grieving families want to hear that their sons and daughters died to make free a nation that presently seems incapable of exercising freedom as we know it? On the contrary, his encomiums are always about the ultimate sacrifices our soldiers have made to protect our freedom. Let’s be real and admit that despite the arguments being made that a secure Iraq guarantees Iraqi and American freedom, our venture in Iraq has always been about American security and American interests first. If he were honest, President Bush would take equal time to honor the ultimate sacrifices of untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens, nameless, unmourned, and unknown, who have died for American freedom.

You might think I sound ungrateful for what Americans did to remove Saddam Hussein from power and release Iraqis from his indefensible tyranny and insane brutality. That’s probably true: I am not properly grateful for the passing of this dictator from the world scene or for the people who made sure Saddam and his deputies could do no more harm to their people. But my sense of gratitude is challenged, because the ends did not justify the means by which we pursued those ends, and the intended results of achieving our narrow ends have not been realized by any stretch of the imagination. If it is fair to ask Iraqi citizens if they are grateful for having been freed from the grasp of the iron fist of Saddam, it is also fair to ask them if they are grateful for what they have been “freed” into today. Additionally, it is fair to ask whether the Iraqi people can ever be free as long as the United States is present in force on their streets.

These thoughts I submit humbly, but angrily.