Last week, as I sat listening to the first press conference Bush gave after he was elected, something clicked in me regarding what my problem has been with this whole war situation for the past 2 years. As Bush was giving his usual schpiel about spreading freedom and what not, I began thinking about all the other free and democratic nations in this world, and how their democracy came to be, ours being a prime example. There are these things called civil wars and revolutions...many countries have had them. It's when the citizens of a country get together, decide they want some change and fight like mad for it. In France, during the French Revolution, the common folk rose up against the monarchy, and eventually those common folk had overthrown their government and started anew...the way that they wanted. Sure, it took about 10 years and a lot of people died, but these people really wanted to be free, so they kept at it. I don't know if anyone paid attention in elementary school history class, but our country did the same damn thing.
I know that Saddam Hussein was a bad, bad man, but what gives us the right to invade that country, topple its leader and impose our way of living on their people? Fear of an attack? Sorry, not good enough. Put yourself in an Iraqi's shoes. You live in Baghdad. You have a family and own a little shop down the street. You're not living in the lap of luxary, but you're happy and things are going fine. Suddenly, the most powerful army in the world starts bombing your city. Your home and business is destroyed. How are you feeling right now? You're probably pretty pissed. You want to fight back. You want to defend your country from these invaders. Now, according to us, you are an insurgent. You're not a simple man who is trying to defend his homeland, but you're an evil terrorist trying to stop the spread of freedom. This morning I was listening to an anecdote being told by an American citizen, who was around our age, about the time he recently spent in Iraq. What he saw was pretty terrible. He described meeting various Iraqi militants whose story was similar to the fake person I described above; regular men who were just trying to protect their families and their land against an invading army.
Don't get me wrong, I am all about human rights. I agree with the lot of us that think everyone in the world deserves to be free. However, changing the societal structure of an entire nation is something that should happen on that country's own terms, in their own time. If they decide they really want to fight for their freedom and call on us for help, then fine, send troops (remember how France and Germany (well, Prussia...) helped us win our freedom?). But, until then, leave societies to their own and work on improving freedom in our own country.
3 comments:
Cry about it, you can't exactly change anything by basically saying Bush sucks, because you're one person.
But yeah, what if we switched places with Baghdad, and our leader was Saddam, would you just say 'oh, don't let the U.S. come in an try to help, because our leader is just GREAT.'
That said, you don't like things here, move to France, or something. Don't whine about it, go do something about it.
Nobody in this country's grateful for any of the Presidents that do their job knowing some ignorant little sods are bitching behind their backs because they're not perfect. At least they had the balls to do it despite people like you.
My friend 'Cracker' summed it up nicely for you, if you take offense to being called a stupid little sod.... But you're a dumbass as well.
That post was very well written. I am impressed.
I think you bring up some good points.
How do you rule without the consent of the governed? It's very hard to do. We are trying to do it over in Iraq. I sincerely hope that we can help Iraq become a better country, but it will be very difficult.
As for the decision to go into Iraq in the first place, that decision was made, at best, prematurely.
And as for the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda -
"There is 'no credible evidence' that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States..."
from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46254-2004Jun16.html
The 9/11 commission had access to all the classified documents.
Why do you still think there is a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda? Do you have access to some secret intelligence sources the rest of the world is unaware of?
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