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On War

It seems that we're safe to proclaim victory in Iraq...the old regime is defunct. Our soldiers are installed and our presence in Iraq has been established and it's not likely to go away soon. Saddam Hussein has been relegated to the same limbo where lies Osama bin Laden. We've shown our might to the rest of the world in defiance of their expressed disapproval. We've won the war, but that's the easy part.
I've wrestled with my conscience about how exactly I feel about this act our military has undertaken. On the one hand, it bothers me that we have taken it upon ourselves to play kingmaker when we see fit, and that we have felt the need to use our might to attempt to add another protectorate to our worldwide network of satellite states and military installations. On the other hand, I shed no tears at the end of a brutal regime where those who would protest routinely found themselves tortured, raped, murdered, and mutilated. There is much evil in the world, and it wouldn't bother me if a lot more of it was to disappear. But is this the way?
Like many people I know and call friends, I generally disapprove of the approach the United States has taken. Even if we were ten times as mighty as we are, we are not gods. It is not given to us to decide what is best for the rest of the world. All the same, there are good reasons to embark upon this course of action, and some reasons which are less good, but more palatable to people who live on our shores in fear. We'll start with the good reasons.
We are in need of a particularly vital resource, crude oil, which is found in plenty in the Middle East. Our supply of this resource is vast, but largely untapped because of justifiable environmental concerns. To have this vital resource in the hands of a government which is openly inimical the our interests is a recipe for disaster in the short or the long term. The recent crash of the Venezuelan oil industry, and its concomitant effect on the price of gasoline stateside, dictates that we move to secure a more regular source of this lifeblood of our society. At least until we run out of it entirely and are forced to use our ingenuity to explore alternate energy sources.
The Middle East is also a hotbed of terrorist activity, be it against Israel, or against our own interests. It makes sense to have a strong military presence right in the middle of that area to facilitate any counterterrorist activities we may prosecute. The fact that a lot of these terrorist groups are based outside of Iraq (to the extent that they're based anywhere at all) tends to make this second reason a little less compelling.
Then there are the other reasons, reasons which seem to me to be less good, but much more effective at garnering support for this action on our shores. There's this whole issue of Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction', a phrase which we have stretched to include chemical and biological weapons, as well as nuclear explosives. This semantic wrangling allowed the United States to push UN resolution 1441 with little protest. The powers that be insist that we will find these WMDs in due time. While it's unlikely that Iraq ever possessed nuclear weapons (you can't hide that sort of thing), it is generally accepted that Iraq once had and once used chemical weapons, and that the supply of weapon-grade anthrax in Iraq was surpassed only by the former Soviet Union...and the United States. Whether there are any active chemical or biological agents still on hand in Iraq remains to be seen. This point, a main justifier for our invasion, has quickly dwindled into irrelevance.
Along the same lines...I've heard it said that 'we have to get them before they have a chance to attack us'. That sentiment is sheer idiocy. Iraq did not have ICBMs (such as North Korea is developing at a feverish pace) which could hit even Great Britain, let alone the United States. And again, it is next to impossible to develop these instruments without being found out very easily. Iraq is no more a threat to us than any other nation in the Middle East, although like every other nation in the Middle East (aside from Israel, and yes, including our supposed allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia), Iraq has little reason to love the United States.
And then there is the whole question of terrorism. To what extent did the Baathist regime in Iraq support terrorist activities, either against the United States, or Israel. It's been said that Saddam Hussein would give $25,000 to the families of each suicide bomber who struck a blow against Israel. This may be the case...at any rate, Hussein had no love for Israel and surely was not upset at any particular case where innocent Israelis were slain in acts of terrorism. That is a horrible sentiment, but no more so than seeing Ariel Sharon rejoice in sending Israeli tanks tearing through Palestinian settlements in the West Bank. As I said before, there is much evil in this world.
There's also the question of Iraq's possible involvement in the 9-11 attacks. There has been no credible link between Iraq and the thugs who sent nearly 3,000 people to their untimely end on that fateful day. And yet I still hear people say that Hussein was involved. He may have been thrilled with those events, or he may have seen that the wreckage of the twin towers foretold his own destruction, or both. But if there had been a bonafide link between Iraq and 9-11, everyone would know about it by now. Instead, we have Colin Powell, a great statesman, making a circumstantial case to link Iraq tenuously to the hated Al Qaeda terrorist network. A more telling link is to Saudi Arabia...15 or the 19 hijackers were of Saudi origin...yet no one speaks openly of this. We have a strong presence in Saudi Arabia already...and 9-11 still stunned the world.
Our anointed leaders have put a different spin altogether on this invasion...claiming that it is our moral right and necessity to remove this dictator, this murderer of innocents, this supporter of terrorists, from power, to restore freedom to the oppressed Iraqi people. All well and good, except that we are not gods and any attempt to act as gods will inevitably go awry in one way or another. We are right to call Saddam Hussein an evil tyrant. Is the rest of the world wrong to label our nation as a rogue state bent on world hegemony? Think about it...