The Iraq War was a colossal mistake from the beginning. It was based on ideological views and a very small and narrow view of the world, and it has made us less safe and disillusionment is now the American mindset of a hammer and nail.
Now, why was this war such a colossal mistake? When you invade a sovereign nation, you need to be able to have the world on your side, and you must be convincing and truthful with your supporters. Did the United States fail in all respects? Yes. You can say that Saddam Hussein was a bad, or even evil, man or that every country in the world supposedly had the same intelligence as the United States did, but no one can dispute that we had him in a box for ten years, and that there was no way that he was going to harm anyone around him. Now, in terms of diplomacy, why couldn’t the United States wait for the inspectors to finish their jobs? Or was the United States too scared that the inspectors would come back and say that they found nothing and that Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction? I think that the later was more plausible because if this was the case the United States would have lost the support of Great Britain. There would have been no way that Tony Blair and his government would have defied international law, because the United Kingdom places a higher regard on international law than we do in America. As everyone knows, the first couple of months are very important when you are occupying a nation. If you picture six hundred thousand more troops on the US side from various different countries, wouldn’t one think that that country would have a large likelihood of succeeding in the occupation of the country? This was another mistake that the United States made; they invaded Iraq with too small an amount of troops. By going against the international community, the US lost half a million troops, and perhaps billions of dollars in revenue and/or support. You can say all you want about the United Nations and how it does not do anything or is likely to promote neutrality and search for a peaceful resolution, However, when people think that the United Nations should have a more militant mindset, they are failing to remember that it was not founded on militant principles rather on a peaceful one. History will not be so kind to the United States when it comes to the Iraq War. We are where we are. We have an insurgency that is becoming increasingly strong. We have civil war going on whether or not the current administration wants to admit it. Now we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There are a few questions we must ask ourselves: How much more are we willing to spend on the war? How many of our young men and women are we willing to sacrifice for whatever this war was started for, which we now know was not a truthful beginning to which the logical reasons are being denied to us. I personally believe that the war is lost already. If I am wrong I will be the first one to admit it, but I wish the United States understood the relationship between all ethnic and religious groups in Iraq. I believe that the best option would be to have a timetable to withdraw because we are making the problem worse. They are using us as a propaganda tool for recruitment for the holy war. This now means that soon they will be attacking things outside of Iraq. Iraq, in my opinion, is no longer a military problem. One thing our country must learn is that everything does not require a hammer to a nail. The Iraqis are going to have to fight for their own country and let the best man, or group, win. If you look at the whole situation in Iraq from an asymmetrical viewpoint, without us there would be chaos and civil war with someone fighting to win control; however, if you look at it from an asymmetrical viewpoint, with the United States still there, you see chaos, civil war, American resentment and Islam fundamentalist who are only there because of our occupation of the country. So, you can choose which viewpoint you want. I will choose the prior. I have one question, what happened when we left Vietnam and how are they doing today? No comments | Add a comment