Blogswarm: War in Iraq

This is a copy of a letter that I sent into the newspaper. If I have time to write another post abuot the war and elaborate on some points, I will be more than happy to. However right now I am unable to do this because I am in the middle of class.

Thanks,
Chris.

Dear Mr. Editor:

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 marks the five-year anniversary of the beginning of Mr. Bush’s war. I find it loathsome, appalling and shocking that the American people have let the terror-inducing “War on Terror” continue for the duration of one year, much, much less five.

Those responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center were identified as being of Arabic decent. I have no doubt that today’s bigotry and discrimination towards all people who simply look Arabic. In comparison, note that throughout the duration of World War II and for decades afterwards, Oriental people and particularly Japanese people were subjected to the same unwarranted discrimination, including the American version of a concentration camp, set aside only for Japanese-Americans.

Speaking in terms of just probability, the hijackers behind the 9/11 attacks represent a small percentage of the Arabic people. The same percentage of extremists that can be seen in almost every culture. But probability and statistics do little to curb the appetite for vengeance that such an attack procures.

The war on terror was started as a backlash against the travesty that occurred on 9/11. It was started to help prevent something like that from ever happening again. Instead of fighting terror, we have been fighting terrorism and terrorists. These are quite different from each other. While terror is a state of mind, an emotion, terrorism is an idea that uses that emotion to make people do what you want them to do. And terrorists are any people who use terrorism to their own means.

How can we fight a war against an abstract concept? How can we win a war against a state of mind? Is there any way to possibly succeed in our hopeless undertaking? This writer thinks not. This writer would venture to guess that the purpose of a War on Terror is not to win it, but to fight it forever.

But what instills terror into the hearts of people more than physical attacks, like the kind that happens during a war? There are very few things that this writer can think of. Rather than using negotiations and peace talks to their best end, this country has prematurely drawn its sword towards someone who might have been an ally. Instead of extending the open hand of reason and negotiation (principles that this country was founded upon), this country has closed its hand and driven a punch.

We are in a war that cannot be won, but do we have the dignity to admit that it was a fruitless endeavor from the beginning? Do we have the strength to admit that we were wrong? Or will we continue fighting; continue signing away our precious freedoms that are not rivaled around the world to empower the Executive Officer with ways that we are told will hasten the end of this
impossible war? Will we continue this until we become the very thing we deposed in Iraq?

If current legislation, like the hypocritically named Patriot’s Act, continues to take our rights away and continues to empower a new government that is founded upon a war, will we not come closer and closer to that which we opposed in Iraq; a dictatorship? This writer sincerely hopes that the American people will awaken from their American Dream so that they can see what horrors they have wrought.

The train we are on as a country is heading towards despotism and every citizen has a ticket, do we really want to go there, or should we change directions at the next station?

Chris
Canton