Arguing Iraq War Fallacies
Written by Jake
June 12, 2008
So often, I hear the arguments that we need to stay in Iraq because of two major reasons. The first is that we need to fight them there so they don’t come over here. The second is that we are working to “help” the Iraq people. When I hear these arguments, I can immediately make the assumption that these individuals have been misled by the corporate media, because this is exactly what they want you to think. However, at this point, with all the information that is available, we can make a very strong and clear argument against both of these manufactured fallacies.
Let’s discuss the “safe” idea of taking the fight to them. It is completely ridiculous to think that we are incapable of defending our own borders. Folks, I served in the military and I’ve come to believe that most people out there don’t realize how many borders we are supposedly defending. We have troops in 135 of 170 nations and we currently have over 700 bases worldwide. In addition, our CIA is in every nook-and-cranny around the world gathering what they call intelligence and allegedly “fighting the good fight.” The scope of our military occupation of other countries is incomprehensible to most Americans.
Our founding fathers told us to stay away from foreign entanglements. Based on these statistics, we have pissed on their advice and built a spider web over the entire globe. We are so entangled in foreign affairs that it would cause for a major global shift for us to use our military as it was originally intended. In the past century, we have become obsessed and brainwashed that we are the parents of the world. We need to be there if anyone in the world needs our “help.”
The reality of the situation is that if we were to focus on our own borders and use our military and intelligence strictly to keep us safe from attacks, I feel it would be nearly impossible for anyone to succeed. Don’t let the events of September 11 confuse you on this. This administration had plenty of intelligence that these attacks were coming. The results of 9/11 can only be attributed to one of three scenarios: 1.) the administration was and is completely incapable of handling the situation, 2.) the administration is collectively some of the stupidest people alive or 3.) it was an inside job used to create public support for an intended war to fill the pockets of major corporations. Either way, it is not a problem of a successful attack, but rather a faulty administration.
We had the intel, our military was uncharacteristically inept, and the aftermath of the past five years gives us oil companies with record profits, companies like KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater and so forth fat and happy. On the flip side, the economy is on the verge of a depression, our character in the world has been destroyed, and our citizens are afraid of ghosts. The past 7 years has been filled with “mistakes” and propaganda, but we continue to eat it and shut up. They really worked out some kinks in the past 40 years since we all got pissed about Vietnam.
As much as the corporate media would like you to believe a “conspiracy” is crazy, you’d probably be surprised at just how many intelligent, trustworthy people have come out with questions. Even to call it a conspiracy is a tool to make it unpopular. We haven’t gotten any answers, and all anyone wants is the truth. We haven’t received that yet, so I find it strange that the questions are conspiracies. They want you to think it’s anti-American to question the administration. However, I implore you to ask yourself just one question. What did the military and/or the administration do on 9/11?
According to Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret), “I'm an old interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I've done it. I know how long it takes. I know the rules. Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: ‘Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing’. That's not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive.”
Let’s move on to the idea of “helping” the Iraq people. If you’re anything like me, you’ve grown up thinking the Middle East is a crazy place with crazy radicals that hate the United States. Well, this probably is true to a certain extent. We’ll just put behind us the fact that we were in cahoots with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden throughout the 70’s and did a lot to arm them ourselves. Anyway, there has been a complete failure for this administration to demonstrate a link between the events of 9/11 and Iraq, but we still invaded.
This was a decision made by the President, on his own, and without the grace of congress. Under the constitution, the only way the President would be able to make this decision on his/her own is if we faced an “imminent” threat. Doesn’t anyone find it strange that Iraq was such an imminent threat that we gave them a deadline to come forward with WMD? Correct me if I’m wrong, but an imminent threat would be a situation that calls for a decision to be made immediately and the procedure of calling on congress would be impossible considering time constraints. That was certainly not the case the week of March 18, 2003.
Since we’ve been in Iraq, this administration is responsible for more than a million civilian deaths, over 4,000 U.S. military deaths, and the serious injury and/or maiming of more than another 30,000 troops. This is a total catastrophe and we should be focusing our attention on getting this over with. It’s pretty common knowledge that roughly 70% of our population is in disagreement with this war. How have we allowed our government to push forward going against what we’ve obviously demonstrated we disagree with? They could at least address these statistics. Oh wait, Cheney did and all he had to say was “so.”
What about the Iraq people? As Americans, we can be pretty comfortable in our own lives and find it hard to really consider the wants and needs of people in other countries. It is pretty hard, though, when this media is force feeding you mixed information about what the Iraqi’s really want. We have destroyed their cities, homes and infrastructure. We have and continue to erroneously arrested and/or torture innocent civilians in pursuit of “intel.” In many areas, there is standing sewage in the streets. Clean drinking water is a thing of the past. Depleted uranium from our weapons lingers in the air, causing health problems and birth defects (both for the Iraqi’s and our troops). Is this the “help” they really want?
According to a poll taken in Iraq all the way back in August 2005 by the British Ministry of Defense, a staggering 82% of Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops and less than 1% of Iraqis believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security.” Recently, Bush has been trying to bully Iraq into an agreement that would allow for the U.S. to occupy 50 permanent basses, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraq law. Luckily, the Iraq government has been smart enough to decline. Sami al-Askari, a senior Shia politician told the Washington Post: “The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq… If we can’t reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say ‘Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don’t need you here anymore.’”
There is no reason to think that we are really helping them that much. We are definitely not helping enough to account for all the destruction in the country this administration has caused or the $5,000 a second we as taxpayers are spending over there. This is an unjust and costly war in so many ways and it’s time we do something about it. Stop being a sheep and join the team. Our government has been hijacked and it’s as important as ever for every American to stand up and fight for this country.