I SUPPORT THE WAR IN IRAQ!

In spite of the politicking going on all around, I support the war in Iraq. Here’s why.

1. There can be three reasons why Bush attacked Iraq. He wanted personal revenge on Saddam on his father’s behalf and the WMDs were just a pretext, he went there solely because of the oil and the WMDs were just a pretext, or he actually went there for ‘world peace’. Even if he did it for the first reason, he probably ended up serving the second cause, and also the third. Any dictatorship is insidious to the establishment of a peaceful world, and someone has to subdue it. The UN did not take the initiative. The US did. Also, going there for oil is not wrong. Oil runs the US economy. It’s to America’s best interests to safeguard it in every way possible. As for WMDs, I am certain that Saddam would have got them in the next few years, if not now.

2. As for the people who take the ‘Why is it America’s business to stop terror and totalitarianism everywhere?’ stance, my answer is that it’s not our business to ask that. If anyone should ask that, it’s only the American people. They are the ones who have to suffer the benefits and losses.

3. During the Second World War, America entered the war only after Pearl Harbor. In spite of this, no one raised serious allegations after the war saying that she had participated only to safeguard rubber in South East Asia (even though that was a big driving force for Roosevelt’s maneuver). Everyone accepted that, in the end, it had become a fight against totalitarianism and for freedom, and America was the bastion of democracy that sought to do exactly that. So if they did not advance the ‘rubber et. al. argument’ that time, why should they even advance the ‘oil argument’ in Iraq’s case?

4. The US should have been accused of going to Iraq only for the oil if they had in fact withdrawn their troops immediately after defeating Saddam. Staying there only means that the American Government wants to ensure it's presence in the Middle East in general to forward it's oil interests. In doing so, if it's also helping the Iraqi people build a democracy, there's only good that can come out of that. From this perspective, the 'take out our troops' outcry is valid, but only because of a possible strategic error that Bush has committed, just as Lyndon Johnson did. It should not be deemed an error of intent. I enumerate this in the next point.

5. The Korean War and the Vietnam War can be looked upon as good intentions gone unexpectedly bad. In both cases, America wanted to end Communism, a noble intention, and in Vietnam’s case, the appalling failure can be looked upon only as a massive strategic error. If anything, Lyndon Johnson should be castigated for not realizing this and perpetuating the error thus costing the US many lives. It was bad planning, not bad intent.

The bottom line is this. Totalitarian regimes have to be destroyed in any case. Unless an international body like the UN takes action against them by common consensus, someone has to. If a country decides to do that, and especially if doing that will serve some important political or social cause for that country, I say carpe diem!

P.S.: Not to be taken too seriously. I just wanted to see how it feels on the ‘other side’!