I love America; I am proud to be an American. I love everything we stand for in the world community, most importantly peace and freedom; I love the people, the diversity, democracy, and the opportunities available to us. I support our troops, our fellow teenagers that are all ready to go to war, to go to kill people. It is their duty; their only choice is follow orders. A great number of them serve the country proudly and a good number of these teenagers are going to die.
War is now a reality. The UN opposed it; it has opposed several issues before, but through diplomacy America has managed to persuade most of the world that we had been acting justly. This time the opposition was far greater. There have been more anti-war protests around the world than in any other occasion; and they will keep rising. The world is not happy with us, and I doubt diplomacy will convince them otherwise this time around.
If a country came and invaded the US, I would fight for our country, fight for my land. I expect the people in Iraq to do the same; innocent people, children, women. Wouldn't you try to protect your land? Your house? This war will be waged on the cities. The people in Iraq have very little, and that very little includes their houses, their land. And they will protect it. They will kill our soldiers! But, can I blame them for protecting their homes? Just as our soldiers are fulfilling an obligation, so to the Iraqi people will be fulfilling an obligation to themselves to defend themselves and fight back.
We can say that our soldiers are protecting American lives. But, I am not quite sure of that. Has Iraq done anything to us? No. It seems like they have weapons of mass destruction, so do we. So does China, and seemingly North Korea is working really hard to develop some. North Korea seems like bigger threat to us than Iraq.
I find that the government's handling of this situation brings up many important questions. First, why does the government keep linking Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda? If they presented sufficient evidence, why is it that Russia, France, and even China remain unconvinced? I want to believe our country is going to liberate the Iraqi people. But here I ask, do they really want to be liberated? Do they want a democracy? Can we force it on them? Is there not an element of irony in forcing liberation and democracy? On the other hand, if Iraq is threat to the US, we must do something. But, please, please, give us some evidence of these threats. I cannot help but feel puzzled as our president speaks. He keeps scaring his own people! He keeps saying that Saddam Hussein will develop a nuclear weapon in couple of years if we don't attack now. And we cannot deny that Saddam was pursuing weapons of mass destruction, some 15 years ago, but the facilities got destroyed in 1981. Bombed, to be precise. The reason we know there are no nuclear weapons is that uranium, a highly radioactive element and basic component of nuclear weapons (because it is so radio-active) can be spotted from satellites. If Iraq had any nuclear capabilities right now, we would know. The president would not hesitate to show to the world that Iraq has uranium. And so far UN inspectors have not even found any working chemical or biological missiles. So the US says that UN inspections don't work? Have we been attacked yet? No. Why not?
Because Iraq, at least as long as the inspectors remain, has no chance of attacking anyone; they are under constant surveillance. Iraq has been cooperating more and more with the inspectors. What if we let the inspectors do their job for some more months to find some real evidence?
It seems clear that as long as they are there, no one is in danger. Why rush to war? Why risk the lives of our brother soldiers, and kill thousands of civilians in the process?
As American citizens, we all have the right to express our opinions. I love our country's right to freedom of speech, but for a respectable news network to start 'calling names/insults' to another country, for not wanting to go to war?[Fox is not a respectable news network.--ed] I heard France being called 'malicious' by the people in Fox News. Around 85 percent of the people in France oppose a war without UN consensus. How could a government ignore the voice of its people? The same goes for Germany and Russia and China and most countries in the world. The people don't want a war. France wants to disarm Iraq as much as the US does, but they just say violence is not the answer. Why do we then call them evil, or traitors? They just don't want a war, and certainly don't deserve all the harsh criticism from us. Since when does peacefulness imply antagonistic or even malicious intent?
I am proud to be a Republican. And though not extremely religious, I do consider myself a Christian. It hurts me to see all our major churches oppose the war! The Pope is condemning it as well Are we going to start calling our spiritual leaders crazy as well? Why do the politicians ignore this? What do the people of the US say?
I have seen the vast majority of the world rallying for peace.
Why? How can the majority be wrong, and we be Right? I am tired of hearing arguments like: "the government has facts that they cannot tell". That is just BS, I'm sorry. Even if they can't tell the public, they can still tell the security council. We will be breaking international law; people need to recognize the severity of such an act.
Several countries will support us. But it seems they are compelled to do so out of economic reasons rather than genuinely supportive of our actions. There happen to be a good number of Third World Countries that depend on us and our aid and trade to have a stable economy. Yes, we help a lot of countries; we have helped many and will keep helping many.
We are a great nation. But could it be, that this time, we're wrong?
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