"Endings"

“Endings”


Today the combat mission in Iraq has ended, well kind of. We still have 50,000 US combat personal basically doing the same thing that they have been for the past 7 years. Now they are calling their role “advisement and assistance” to the Iraq government. Here’s the thing because of our invasion into Iraq we have destabilized them politically, economically, and socially, the three things that hold a country together. I completely agree that the world is a better place without Saddam and his oppressive regime. However, are we doing more harm? Let’s look at the facts today the Iraq government is unstable, there is massive social conflict between ethnic groups, and most of their oil refineries (also known as Iraq’s only export) have been blown to hell. This all happened after we got there, and now we are acting like we did some great act for the people. What we are doing in Iraq is the equivalent of a doctor tearing open your thigh, removing the caner that you have, and half way through of repairing the damaged caused leaving you in the hands of a few of his interns that will be leaving maybe not in time see your leg healed. Doesn’t it all sound great?

In truth we’re not doing what is best for the Iraq people. We’re not doing what is best to fix our mistakes. We’re our concentrating on politics. Let’s rewind the clocks back to the beginning of the Iraq war, President Bush was acting on intelligence gathered by the CIA, that there was WMD’s in Iraq, and that they were an imminent threat to the US and its’ interests. This was not some crack pot scheme that Bush came up with kill hundreds of thousands of people. This was a man acting on what intelligence was available to him, and let’s face it all of us, as a people gave into the fear of WMD’s, so much that what we were telling our president and the rest of the world we were okay with invading Iraq. Now looking back, was this a good decision? No, and almost everyone agrees that yes there was some benefit from our occupation of Iraq, but have we done more damage? Probably, can we still fix Iraq? Yes. Are we willing too as a country? No. Why aren’t we willing too? It’s because of politics. We are deciding the fate of people, and counties based on getting certain politicians re-elected. Does that sound fair?

In recent years politicians have reduced themselves at least in my eyes back to watching children argue. For example, what happens when a ball gets thrown over a fence into the wetlands area at a school when two children are playing basketball? Both the children point fingers at each other, and probably can give you a list of reasons why the other one is at fault, even if both agree who threw it over the fence. Never mind the fact that now there is a ball in the wetlands that has to be retrieved. How does that compare to politicians? The exact same thing happens when it comes to political issues. Don’t believe me? Take Iraq, everyone can agree that the republicans started it, and everyone agrees that democrats have shot down bills to assist our troops in their fight to stabilize Iraq. Now instead of figuring out a practical solution to the problem that is our occupation of Iraq, both parties point fingers at each other for the mistakes that each other have made in the past. This has what American politics has become, and has been for a number of years, because we as an American people are quick to elect politician’s who will choose the easiest and quickest way to satisfy a problem.

So has the Iraq war ended? No. Will it end in the best way possible? At least for our politicians. Has party politics ended? No. So we haven’t really ended anything after two presidents and altering political majorities.

But what do we care?