On the War

The defining feature of our era is without a doubt the so called Global War on Terrorism, and, more specifically, the war that is ongoing in the country of Iraq. It was almost six years ago that the precipitating act for most of the relevant events occurred, which was the mass murder of nearly three thousand people, on the eleventh of September, 2001. The men responsible for that doubtlessly deserve to be held to account, but they don’t, nor have they ever, resided in Iraq. Because the administration of George W. Bush was so passionately inclined to subject that country to the full force of the American Military, we let the men with actual culpability slip away into the night, where they can continue to plan for more attacks. Four years ago a contingent of mainly American, with a few Brits and others thrown in for good measure, tanks, hummers, armored personal carriers, and the like rolled into Iraq as “smart” bombs fell upon the country. That month-long opening salvo saw ten thousand civilians killed. That is over three times the number of innocent people that were killed on 9/11. Those people were just as innocent, just as undeserving of that fate as the unfortunate souls aboard the four airliners, and those working at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Even the soldiers that were killed, maybe 45,000 of them, what misdeed of theirs warranted the fate to which they were consigned? They did nothing wrong, they were only defending their country, their homeland from foreign invaders. Motivated by patriotic fervor, or the desire to protect their families, they were just as innocent, just as undeserving of such a fate as anyone else. After the fall of Baghdad, after Saddam no longer held the reins of Iraq, after MR. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished”, what then? The war, the killing continued on relentlessly. The loss of soldiers continued at the steady pace of at least two a day, that being broken only by periods of intensification and escalation. It soon became clear that the primary justification that Mr. Bush Gave for this war was as spurious as his electoral victory. Saddam, and Iraq, was not in possession of any biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. There was no link to Al Qaeda, to the people responsible for the three thousand American deaths suffered six years ago. The terrible toll continued, and continues to climb higher every day. Each year has seen more people killed than the year preceding it, and now the situation has grown beyond anybody’s control. There is not one person who can stop this war; there are far too many separate groups and players. No one is in control, not George Bush, not Osama Bin Laden, not anybody. The only thing that can be done is to mitigate as much as possible, the violence that occurs. We must try to draw down, to ease the religious and ethnic tensions, and do whatever is necessary to bring about an end to the killing. The people that perpetrated this atrocity, the people that unleashed this upon the world must be held to account. It must be shown that in a civilized world, actions and events such as these must not be allowed to take place, and the people that would commit them, must not be allowed any power.