Why Are We at War With Iraq?

Jason Wallace

Before I offer my explanation for the reasons behind the Iraq war, there are a few things you need to get straight.

First – The men and woman who serve in the US Government are, by and large, good people who love the Constitution and serve this country admirably and selflessly.

Second – In order to understand world events, you have to look at things on a large scale. If you are concerned about, say, Weapons of Mass Destruction or greed for oil as your examples of why we shouldn’t be in Iraq, you need to step back for a moment and consider that there are far greater issues at hand.

The only reason you would attach your opinion to the anti-war talking point du jour is because you refuse to intelligently consider more information, instead relying on your favorite news source (liberal or conservative) to fill your head, and therefore I believe you are not entitled to an opinion. Remember that reporters are human, and inevitably feel a certain way about an issue, and consequently their reporting will be biased. “Journalistic Integrity” has become a silly smokescreen, if it ever even existed.

Third – The minds at work in our government making decisions, like whether or not to go to war, are privy to far more information than you and I.

Before you read further, digest these three points completely, look at them objectively and without emotion, and you will see them to be true. Understanding this is essential to comprehending what is going on in the world today.

Our government is often thought of in terms of a singular behemoth, an inhuman machine that trolls along oblivious to the world and the will of the people. While there are many anecdotal examples that support this perception, it is in fact not true. The government is made up of individuals, all with morals, values, differing opinions, making millions of decisions each day. Every decision that is made has been filtered through layers and layers of decision makers. We know this as “red tape” and it is an absolutely necessary aspect of government. As a Republic, a nation governed by the rule of law, it must be so. No one is allowed to be rogue, enacting policy or carrying out actions for or against the people on their own.

It is convenient and easy to blame what is perceived as a wrong government action or policy on The Man, Big Brother or whatever you want to call it, but this is just a lazy and ignorant way of looking at things. Checks and balances are the nature of our government. Scores of lawyers, interns, staffers and others pour through each and every detail of each and every decision. Laws are checked and challenged, often making their way to the courts and decided upon by judges. Hundreds of people are involved in everything that happens, ensuring that the government doesn’t do anything that is in conflict with the Constitution. That’s why everything takes so long and seems so terribly inefficient. Remember, these public servants are our neighbors, friends and family. It is not some government machine working independent of the people, it is The People! So why would we go to Iraq? Let’s see, it must be because George Bush Jr. was upset that his dad was living under a cloud of unfinished business from the first Gulf War, so he was going to keep his good name from being tarnished by defeating Saddam. Or maybe it was because Dick Cheney wanted to secure oil rights for his company, Halliburton. Or how about those WMD’s? Did we go to Iraq just to save the Shiites from mass destruction by Saddam’s gas missiles?

Sure, President Bush and a handful of others decided that these were reasons enough to go, so they spoon-fed the thousands of other decision makers’ untrue information, who just sat there with drool oozing out of their mouths, unable to check for themselves and paralyzed with fear that Georgie Boy would squash them if they interfered. After all, the Constitution doesn’t allow for dissent or doubtful questioning within the government, does it? Oh wait, actually it does, in fact it is built for it, with three separate branches (Legislative, Executive and Judicial) to check and question each other.

Decisions, like going to war, are not made lightly, and are not made by one person. No one in our government has that power. Remember President Bush went before the Houses of Congress and the Senate and asked their permission to go to war. And don’t think that his public speech, with the evidence he gave (that is now so widely claimed as false), was enough to convince all those men and women that war was the right course. Refer now to point number Three. They did know more than us, and still do. The posturing and rhetoric we are hearing from those who now oppose the war, but then voted for it, are for their own benefit, to curry favor from the people, so that they can better their chances of holding on to their office.

The majority of the People have grown weary of supporting the war, due to the one major failing weakness of the Bush Administration – the inability to effectively communicate with The People. If the president actually communicated with us, instead of just blandly handing down talking points, I believe the situation would be far different. So I will attempt to communicate the real reasons for this war.

The war we are waging is against Islamic Fascism. What does this mean? Fascism is the belief that a certain ethnic group is “pure” and superior to all others. This belief is carried forward in an aggressive manner by the “pure” cleansing the world of uncleanness and racial and/or ethnic impurity.

The Nazis tried this already and the parallels between that time and today are strikingly similar. The movement headed by Adolph Hitler took years to build up to the point where his nation was willing to risk their lives to further it, but it eventually happened. Their goal was to conquer the world, and eventually cleanse it. The world wanted desperately to believe that this wasn’t true, that no nation could actually pursue such a ridiculous and atrocious goal. We all hemmed and hawed, until whole nations were defeated, and ours was backed into a corner.

This is the genius and courage apparent in the decision of our nation to go to war in Iraq when we did. With so radical, aggressive and merciless a foe as the Islamists are, war was inevitable. We could have postured and pacified, raised and lowered sanctions, and taken every diplomatic route we could think of, but it all would have been in vain. All the time we were burying our heads in the sand, wishing it wasn’t true, they would have been fortifying their position. The aid money that we would have continued to pour in to these Islamo-Fascist nations would have been withheld from the intended recipients (the citizens) by their governments, as happens to so much of our aid money to other third world nations, and poured into the groups planning our destruction. While we postured, they would have dug in and come up with more effective plans to attack us, such as dirty bombs or attacks against our electrical or financial infrastructure. They would have attacked us again, and we would have lost tens of thousands of innocent people. We would have eventually been backed into the very same corner, our only choices being to go to war or be defeated.

This enemy is smart. They know that they cannot face the American military directly. What we are calling acts of terrorism is actually guerilla warfare. They are in almost every country in the world, divided up into small, autonomous groups, getting direction from localized leadership. In order to be effective and have a chance at defeating us, they must act in this manner. A single, centralized leadership would be a weak link in the chain for them – What if their leaders were captured, they would know the details of every operation that was underway! Instead, they are all united under one common goal – the defeat of western civilization. There are general strategies and tactics for accomplishing this goal, but each cell acts independently of one another. What better way to circumvent our intelligence gathering techniques, and render the sledgehammer that is our military ineffective? They are funded by money coming from seemingly innocuous governments, passing themselves off as friends of America. Face it, our military is not built to face this kind of enemy, one that hides behind children and wears civilian clothes. We can conduct surgical strikes on known enemy hideouts, but when those hideouts are in schools, hospitals and hotels, we look like a bunch of murderers. How ingenious is that? The enemy is also particularly effective at convincing its young followers to commit suicide, taking out huge numbers of soldiers and civilians with them. This is the type of fanatical will we are facing.

How do we defend against this, especially when, even today, the national attitude is bent on pacification! Is it our fault that our enemy is willing to commit suicide in order to kill us? Is it our fault that the enemy is fighting so ferociously? Their propaganda machine, working even through our very own media, has convinced the better part of our nation that this is so. We dare not accuse them of any wrongdoing, so guilty are we of our past Supremacist attitudes and actions. How could we accuse these poor, Arab people of conspiring against us, how racist can we get?!! We are constantly neutered by having our past thrown back in our faces. We kept slaves! Our women were not treated as equals! In fact, none of us had anything to do with these past actions of our nation. You and I are NOT GUILTY!! We do not suppress these nations that have decided to take up arms against us; we have in fact made them rich by buying their oil. We need to throw off this burden of shame and hold our heads up high and recognize that we are a great nation, worthy of defense!

Iraq is just the beginning. The Islamic religion states that anyone who is not a believer in Islam is an enemy of Islam. The Fundamentalists take this belief to mean they are to wage a “holy war” or “jihad” against the West, the unbelievers. Study history and you will realize that this is not the first time this has happened. They use the frustration of the Muslim people, frustration brought on by severe poverty inflicted on them by their own grotesquely wealthy and oppressive governments, to draw them into the fight. The West is evil, they say, look at how rich they are, and at your expense! Fight for Islam! Wage war against the Infidels! You will be rewarded for your deeds! Living under such oppression and poverty, with no hope, it is not surprising that so many choose the Fundamentalist view.

Our nation has chosen to combat this enemy by cutting off their funding, and by spreading Democracy. Once Democracy and Capitalism take hold in these countries, the people will have the opportunity to choose their own destiny. Freedom will bring self confidence. In America, it took decades for this to happen, but eventually women realized they should have equal rights and fought for it. Slaves revolted, and slavery was done away with. The Constitution was Amended to guarantee the rights of all Americans, no matter what race, color or creed. This will happen eventually in any country that chooses democracy. No wonder these Fundamentalists are fighting so hard against us! We are in effect threatening to take away their power base.

In fighting this war, we have recognized that not all people of the Islamic faith are against us. Their frustration and violent mindset stems from their situation. We could simply destroy them all, but instead we choose to fight the Fundamentalists and the root causes of the frustrations of the Muslim people. In the end, we will win, Democracy will take hold, and the Muslim people will have their first taste of real freedom and the opportunity it brings.