I honestly believe we had every right to go into Afghanistan. Essentially the entire world agreed -- The United States had the golden ticket, a free pass. The entire world, for the first time in years, wasn't pissed at us. The entire world MOURNED for us. The entire world wanted us to have JUSTICE. So we invaded. And for a while, it was truly just. It appeared that we could right what was wrong. It appeared that we could create a beacon of peace in the middle east through swift action and diplomacy.
Then the Iraq "war" happened.
Now look at us.
You have MORE American resentment than you did before 9-11. You have MORE people distrusting us, MORE people hating us... and all of that hate, all of that distrust, all of that disgust is the fault of the Bush administration. We went from having almost the entire world behind us in Afghanistan to the entire world hating us because of Iraq. We went from having a shot at actually bringing some stability in the middle east to creating an environment that breeds terrorists.
To be fair, all of this shouldn't be placed on the administration. The mainstream media played its part perfectly in gaining support to invade Iraq. They stopped asking one of the most important questions in American history "where is Osama Bin Laden?" and instead started to ask ones that took us in the wrong direction, namely about Saddam and his magic WMD stockpiles. We ignored the UN, we decided to go with junk intelligence. We ignored the world.... our soldiers are paying the price.
So there you have it. We’re in a “war” with no end in sight. 70,000 innocent Iraqis lay dead. More than 3,400 American soldiers are dead. More than 275 coalition deaths. And my god… the wounded in this war is unthinkable. There is no telling how many Iraqis lay maimed, how many are limbless, how many have completely lost their quality of life. Our own soldiers injuries have surpassed 25,000, many of which have lost entire limbs, their eyesight, their hearing.
I never agreed with the Iraq “war”. The reasons for going in were fabricated… many documents were forged, bogus testimony was believed by the most untrustworthy of sources. Saddam, as ruthless as he was, provided stability in Iraq. He didn’t put up with any bullshit and his country was “free” of terrorists. Sure he was a dick, sure he was dangerous – but not the United States nor the civilized world or anyone immediately outside of his region.
Here’s to getting out of Iraq before 2020. Cheers.
