Feed on Posts or Comments March 28, 2024

News Opinion Spencer on March 20, 2006 11:57 am

3 Years In Iraq

So, today marks the anniversary of our time in Iraq.  The news reports are trying to use this as an attempt to make the entire mission a complete failure and are really touting (hoping, in fact) for an all-out civil war.  Let me give my less pessimistic view.

In 3 years, we have gotten rid of one of the most evil dictators the world has seen since Hitler.  Groups that have never worked together (Kurds, Sunnis, Shi’ites) are at least trying to work together to form a representative government.  The US has lost only 2,400 GI’s.  Of course, any loss is big, but to put things in perspective of wars, this is truly amazing.  If you count all of the American lives that have been lost in car accidents (around 120,000) as well as any number of other sources, 2,400 becomes a much smaller number.  Again, I wish there would be no loss of life, but in this perspective, it is a relatively small number.

Of course, there have been many mistakes and many set backs.  The entire world believed, most likely correctly, that there were large amounts of weapons of mass destruction.  My question isn’t so much of why we haven’t found them, but how did we allow them to get exported to other countries so effortlessly right from under our noses.

On the issue of timing.  In this 30 minute solves everything (e.g. sitcoms) society, people expect and demand that an effort such as this take no longer than a few months to a year to finish.  This is an unreasonable expectation and in no time in the past has a country risen in that short of time.  Even the U.S. took about 11 years to form a constitution from the time that we declared independence.  Germany took well over a decade (and then about another decade after reunification to get back to their full economic prosperity).  Japan took around 40 years to rebuild and become what they are now.  How can we expect to get a country that has been oppressive for thousands of years to change quickly?

Will there be a civil war?  I don’t know.  Should we stay involved if it fully comes to that, I’m of two minds.  We are part of the reason one may start, admittedly, so it is our duty to try to keep the pace.  But civil wars, by definition are ones fought within.  What would have happened if the British had lended a hand to the South during our civil war?  There’s no real way to know.

Remember, we are in this for the long haul, and in time, possibly decades, I believe Iraq can be a source of light in the Arab world.  I support our troops, believe in our mission, and despite some mistakes and set backs believe that everything we are there for is just and right.  Please keep in mind when you hear all of these negative 3 year reports that there is more good going on than is being reported.  Just ask the troops who have been there and you will get a much different story than what you hear on the news.  News is there to make a profit, just like any other business… and good news is not good for profits.  I don’t even need to address how many of these papers / news sources just want to see Bush fall flat on his face (oh well, I guess I did mention it a little )

Have a great day all, and please continue to support and pray for our troops.  Without them, you wouldn’t have the freedoms to do anything that you do, including blogging here on MySpace!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed

Leave a Reply