More Doubt about Iraq War
John Sileo
May 10, 2005
In the wake of Ward Churchill’s coarse and despicable remarks calling the “technocrats” deserving of their mortal 911 fate because they supported a government who’s policy resulted in untold hundred’s of thousands of deaths in Iraq I and II, many of them children, I find myself disturbed and intrigued. They didn’t deserve to die for a lot of reasons that are so obvious I won’t mention. Ward is disturbingly wrong.
When the toxic mix of terrorism, anti-American attitudes, and lost nuclear bombs assaulted this centuries birth, I knew we had a desperately challenging time. I knew we had to do something, but what? George Bush presented a reasonable option and I supported it as a citizen. Certainly there were hundreds of reasonable responses to 911, but we had to pick one, a difficult task in any situation, especially with such dire consequences at stake. Three thousand people dead, many more injured, and psychological sadness and fear wreaked unspeakable damage to this nation. It was really impossible to quantify such destruction. It was painful yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
So we picked one. We destroyed two governments and diligently worked to rebuild them. I supported both and I don’t regret it. But who among us can say that the war in Iraq was not highly controversial worldwide and domestically. So many of us are confident in our position one way or the other, but I think that is a mistake. The older and wiser I become the more I learn of what I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to become of Iraq. But some things I am certain of. That is that nobody knows for sure what is going to become of our 911 response in Iraq. We had to pick one option and live with it. Now, let’s live with it.
That is to say it was and is controversial for logical reasons. We know Ward is wrong, but the concept he presents is intriguing.
In the process of stopping the state-supported Islamic terrorists from killing thousands, tens of thousands, or (dare I say) hundreds of thousands of Americans in a future attack we have destroyed an unjust, terrorist-supporting, tyrannical government in Iraq. It is reasonable that we did so if their threat to us was real, which I believe it was.
The major hitch to this is one that cannot be ignored any longer. In our effort to stop them from killing thousands of our people, we killed tens of thousands of theirs. The Iraqi civilian death toll is largely unknown, although estimates range from 20,000 to 100,000 and counting. So if it is wrong to kill thousands upon thousands of people, why are we doing it based on controversial reasons? Why are we doing it at all?
Self-defense is one answer even if it’s based on a judgment call that is controversial. The other answer is an eye for an eye. We are killing them because they killed us and threaten to do so again. Shamefully, that is really what Ward is saying. We deserved to die because we killed so many of them in past military campaigns (Iraq I). Ward is wrong and so are we. An eye for an eye is unjust and conducive to perpetual violence. For a lot of other reasons that are so obvious I won’t mention, it is a mistaken life philosophy. We are both wrong!
Actually, the tens of thousands of Iraqi people now dead or injured really isn’t an eye for an eye case. This is true for one clear reason. They killed three thousand and we killed several tens of thousands. It’s like a 30 or 40 or 50 eyes for an eye.
This kind of activity is highly controversial and questionable and who wants to deny it? That is to say who would like to use illogic to deny it?
Maybe I should regret my support of this war! The problem I have is that I didn’t know the details about what casualties would occur. Those specifics are weighed before our leaders weigh in with their important opinions. I can only assume that they had a good idea of the expected casualties in their war plans. Frankly, if I knew tens of thousands of people were to die I would have immediately withdrawn my support and logic tells me many others would have too.
The truth is this nation, often through good intentions, has killed a monstrous amount of people throughout the world. It is the same situation today in Iraq. We have good intentions and sound reason to justify a military strike, but we wind up doing the very thing we know is wrong. We act out the exact thing, death on a large scale, we are trying to prevent. Well, the truth is, we didn’t prevent it. We caused it. We did it and we should recognize that it was wrong and highly controversial. Some people see that and are speaking out against the war. They have a point.
I acknowledge there are other perspectives about this subject that are worth their weight. But we shouldn’t ignore this perspective and I believe we have. Our actions have caused a lot of destruction.
The worse part of this: we have a history of doing it.
When the toxic mix of terrorism, anti-American attitudes, and lost nuclear bombs assaulted this centuries birth, I knew we had a desperately challenging time. I knew we had to do something, but what? George Bush presented a reasonable option and I supported it as a citizen. Certainly there were hundreds of reasonable responses to 911, but we had to pick one, a difficult task in any situation, especially with such dire consequences at stake. Three thousand people dead, many more injured, and psychological sadness and fear wreaked unspeakable damage to this nation. It was really impossible to quantify such destruction. It was painful yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
So we picked one. We destroyed two governments and diligently worked to rebuild them. I supported both and I don’t regret it. But who among us can say that the war in Iraq was not highly controversial worldwide and domestically. So many of us are confident in our position one way or the other, but I think that is a mistake. The older and wiser I become the more I learn of what I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to become of Iraq. But some things I am certain of. That is that nobody knows for sure what is going to become of our 911 response in Iraq. We had to pick one option and live with it. Now, let’s live with it.
That is to say it was and is controversial for logical reasons. We know Ward is wrong, but the concept he presents is intriguing.
In the process of stopping the state-supported Islamic terrorists from killing thousands, tens of thousands, or (dare I say) hundreds of thousands of Americans in a future attack we have destroyed an unjust, terrorist-supporting, tyrannical government in Iraq. It is reasonable that we did so if their threat to us was real, which I believe it was.
The major hitch to this is one that cannot be ignored any longer. In our effort to stop them from killing thousands of our people, we killed tens of thousands of theirs. The Iraqi civilian death toll is largely unknown, although estimates range from 20,000 to 100,000 and counting. So if it is wrong to kill thousands upon thousands of people, why are we doing it based on controversial reasons? Why are we doing it at all?
Self-defense is one answer even if it’s based on a judgment call that is controversial. The other answer is an eye for an eye. We are killing them because they killed us and threaten to do so again. Shamefully, that is really what Ward is saying. We deserved to die because we killed so many of them in past military campaigns (Iraq I). Ward is wrong and so are we. An eye for an eye is unjust and conducive to perpetual violence. For a lot of other reasons that are so obvious I won’t mention, it is a mistaken life philosophy. We are both wrong!
Actually, the tens of thousands of Iraqi people now dead or injured really isn’t an eye for an eye case. This is true for one clear reason. They killed three thousand and we killed several tens of thousands. It’s like a 30 or 40 or 50 eyes for an eye.
This kind of activity is highly controversial and questionable and who wants to deny it? That is to say who would like to use illogic to deny it?
Maybe I should regret my support of this war! The problem I have is that I didn’t know the details about what casualties would occur. Those specifics are weighed before our leaders weigh in with their important opinions. I can only assume that they had a good idea of the expected casualties in their war plans. Frankly, if I knew tens of thousands of people were to die I would have immediately withdrawn my support and logic tells me many others would have too.
The truth is this nation, often through good intentions, has killed a monstrous amount of people throughout the world. It is the same situation today in Iraq. We have good intentions and sound reason to justify a military strike, but we wind up doing the very thing we know is wrong. We act out the exact thing, death on a large scale, we are trying to prevent. Well, the truth is, we didn’t prevent it. We caused it. We did it and we should recognize that it was wrong and highly controversial. Some people see that and are speaking out against the war. They have a point.
I acknowledge there are other perspectives about this subject that are worth their weight. But we shouldn’t ignore this perspective and I believe we have. Our actions have caused a lot of destruction.
The worse part of this: we have a history of doing it.