Iraq War Has Accomplished Nothing

F or some reason, I feel obligated to write an anti-Iraq war article at least once per semester. Not to say that there is nothing else to write about in the news, but the fact that it is still going on boggles my mind. Thousands of people have died already and the death toll climbs each day. I have no idea how President Bush can sleep at night after dragging us into a war in which the U.S. has no legitimate political interests and with no obvious end in sight. Every line of fear-inciting propaganda that spews forth from his mouth is just another piece of evidence that exposes that he shouldn't be running this country.

Now I am ready to say what Barack Obama said but later apologized for - this war was a waste of time. Does that mean that our young men died for nothing? The answer may, in fact, be yes. I know this may resonate poorly with most people, especially those with relatives over in Iraq or those that know someone who has been killed. But maybe the truth needs to be pointed out, and it may be the truth that angers people and not the comment itself.

To analyze this issue, it must first be acknowledged that the soldiers are not in the wrong here. They are serving their country to the best of their ability, and have put their lives on the line to follow orders from their commander-in-chief, as it well should be. They have removed Saddam Hussein from power and ended a regime built on fear and violence.

However, was the cost of this war, the immense loss of life, worth toppling Hussein? Many more Iraqi civilians died during the course of this war than would have under the Hussein regime. Moreover, he was no threat to the U.S. There were no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence of terrorist plans against the U.S. Though he did openly criticize the U.S. government, the likelihood of him taking any action was very slim.

In the end, the question of whether our soldiers have died for nothing has to be answered by analyzing how effective the war has been in ensuring the safety of the American people. Are we still defending America? Are we safer because of this war? It was absurd to think the Iraqis would have greeted us as liberators. Yes, most are probably thankful that the U.S. removed Saddam from power, but they do not want our form of government. They do not want another country to tell them how run their lives. Every day our troops are over there, we create another person who hates America. Many Iraqis will be hard pressed to forgive and forget a U.S. soldier pointing an M-16 at their face while they arrest somebody on suspicion of terrorist actions against the U.S. They will be angered every time they think about how their love ones were killed by a foreign occupier.

The failure of the Iraq War is built on two paradoxical ideas. The first is the dynamic between war and peace. It is absurd to think that peace can be brought about by war. The only peace that can be brought about by any war is either through the removal of an occupying power or the utter destruction and rebuilding of a country from scratch. The war in Vietnam ended only when the U.S. was driven from the country. World War II ended only after Germany and Japan were destroyed and reduced to rubble, forcing them to rebuild their infrastructures from the bottom up. Unfortunately, the president refuses to acknowledge any of these conclusions. And since we will not pull out of Iraq, nor we will totally bury it under rubble, we are forced to wait an undetermined amount of time and watch the body count grow.

The second dynamic that the president is ignoring is the philosophical differences between a dictatorship and a democracy. In order to set up a stable democracy in Iraq, the president has had to install a semi-dictatorship run by the troops in the midst of the fighting. Arrests of Iraqis are made without due process, a fundamental characteristic of a democracy, and choice, has been snatched away from the people. They have been forced into a democracy. If they really wanted a government like the United States', they would fight for it themselves. Further, even if a stable democracy is formed in Iraq, there is no clear evidence that it will be loyal to the U.S. What the U.S. should have done is removed Saddam and then left - then whatever government was formed would have been more inclined to be a U.S. supporter.

These two fundamental flaws, along with the fervent fighting by the insurgency, are why our American soldiers are dying needlessly. As of this moment, they are not fighting to defend America - they are fighting to clean up a mess the politicians created. People often vilify the insurgency because they kill civilians along with Americans. But look at it from the opposite perspective. We are occupying their country and telling them how they should live their lives. Now, the insurgents are fighting for their freedom from a foreign occupier. For those that think they are criminals, let me reiterate they are at war. The president has had these people imprisoned and claims they are enemies of the state - what else do you expect these people to do? If an Iranian humvee was rolling through my neighborhood, taking over my country, telling me to change my form of government and pointing machine guns at my relatives, I can imagine I would have no problem shooting an RPG at them. IEDs and attacks on soldiers are horrendous, but at the same time they are something that should be expected. They can not and will not be avoided in the future as long as the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq.

There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. has overstayed its welcome in Iraq. Though I can question the motivations behind the war all day, the reality is it is time to leave. There is no possible positive outcome that will result from continued U.S. occupation. The only consequence is that more U.S. lives will be wasted. It is not the responsibility for U.S. soldiers to fight for a democracy if Iraqis are not willing to pick up arms and defend it. The only thing we can do is leave and pray to God that a stable democracy is formed, or at least that the Iraqis don't hate us. And as for improving the safety of our country, only time will be able to tell us that outcome.

Weekly Columnist Greg Pivarnik is a 6th-semester molecular and cell biology major. His column appears on Friday.