The Iraq War: Right, Wrong, and Rights

I've been commenting in recent Cody News about how I think the US is going to have start some sort of new initiative to counter the ever-escalating degree and number of attacks against our troops, and especially the terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people.

I've found some of the comments from readers regarding those posts rather shocking, as it seems some people think that any acknowledgement of the horrid problems that we're now facing in Iraq somehow equates to being against the Iraq war in principle.

To be clear, I'm not overly opposed to the concept of us having gone in and getting rid of that horrible, racist, genocide-perpetrating dictator who was running what was a hellhole of a nightmare place on this planet. From a broader perspective, of course, there's the question of whether the US should ever use military force against a country that's not a direct threat, and it certainly does appear that Iraq was not a direct threat to the US.

That said, the US needed to go into the Middle East and shake things up. The horrible, violent, vicious dictatorships there (including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and every single non-democratic/non-capitalist government in the area -- all dictatorships are violent and vicious by definition, as it takes the threat (or use) of guns against the citizenship to maintain power in a dictatorship) have been able to stay in -- and increase -- their power because of their huge oil reserves (which should belong to individuals and not governments). Those dictatorships' nations are a breeding ground for hate and anger, and not just against the US, but against all society, including their own governments. Clearly, as the US learned on 9/11, that hatred can carry beyond their own borders and onto US soil.

Rather than simply judging this Iraq war on the merits of whether or not our own administration mislead us (certainly there is evidence, though not conclusive, of this, along with as cited in this article, of utter cluelessness), or whether we've got enough troops and security in the country yet (which we clearly do not, given the horrendous escalation of violence there), the ultimate judging will come in another ten or twenty years. Certainly, given the fact that we've not had another major terrorist attack in this country since 9/11, our government has done something right, at least here in the near term. And certainly, the Iraqi people have the opportunity to have a better life (heck a right to life at all) now that the mass murderer who used to terrorize their every minute and movement is gone. However, that doesn't mean it will ultimately turn out to be a better life for them. Just that the opportunity now exists where it didn't previously.

But the US is going to have to do something different and do it soon to combat the escalating underground violence now taking place in Iraq.

Nothing's ever easy. And there's a hell of a lot at stake here, there and everywhere.