Hey look, it’s another college student writing about ending the war in Iraq. Before you finish reading this notebook, you might as well write me off as nothing more than a liberal leg-humping, stereotypical college male, “concerned” about the current state of affairs, and, yes, still angry that there is a person in the Oval Office who did not receive my, or the majority of the American voting population’s vote. But this democracy, as such, allows such leftists to publicly offer a dissenting opinion and have it published freely, correct?
That being the case, let me bring to your attention the likelihood that remaining in Iraq is not going to help anyone. We’ve accomplished things that were intended, and things that weren’t. What we were there to do (really) was remove Saddam—who, to my knowledge, is still at large—and set up a new government that represents the opinions of all the inhabitants of and factions in Iraq. We’ve also accidentally accomplished other things, such as reconstructing their infrastructure (because we accidentally eliminated it), helping to jumpstart their economy (by introducing them to the wonders of working at fast food restaurants), and greatly increasing their exports (of oil from fields that are now owned by Halliburton and we still pay $1.70 per gallon of gas).
I do understand that war comes at a price, and it is obvious that this is not avoidable. However, President Bush need look no further than Hollywood to get into the appropriate psyche of the terrorists in Iraq, with the release of The Matrix: Revolutions.
This particular movie concludes a trilogy, recounting the tale of an entire colony of humans fighting for their existence against the insurmountable armies of emotionless machines.
One particular scene has two women running around with a minimalist RPG launcher, rendering some of the giant, mechanical diggers incapacitated. I could not help but compare this imagery to that of Iraqi civilians firing similar RPG’s at Coalition Forces Blackhawk helicopters.
These civilians are not Osama bin Laden’s cronies; they have not had the Western-style education that he had. They fight because a nation of heavily armed warriors has come to take over their country, and without decent reason.
This war wasn’t totally started for spurious reasons, and there is a respectable number of Iraqis who agree with our actions. It’s just that recently, more people have taken action against our occupation, and that trend will probably not stop until we remove our troops from their nation.
