Saturday July 2, 2005 Honor the troops

Honor the brave patriots who are putting their lives on the line each day in Iraq because their country asked them to do so. There is no question that they are patriots and that they are doing their best to perform their duty. The brave soldiers who have sacrificed everything they had should be honored. They were asked to perform and they did their best.

The war that took these brave people from us is in question, not the action of the soldiers. We were attacked on September 11, 2001 by terrorists from Saudi Arabia who were based in Afghanistan. There was no link between these terrorists and Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction, just as the United Nation inspectors said. There was no imminent danger to the United States from Iraq. There was danger and there still is danger from Osama Bin Laden and his group of terrorists, but invading Iraq has not diminished that. Our leadership appears to have contrived this invasion and the resulting occupation for some unexplained reason.

Our brave soldiers deserve to know the truth and the real reason why they are asked to fight and die over in Iraq. The reasons we have been told have been shown to be wrong and yet there has been no apology or other explanation for our actions. We invaded another sovereign country on false pretenses and are now occupying that country with troops. It would appear that we must have an ulterior motive for doing this and yet our leaders tell us nothing other than it is a good thing that we removed their leader. Perhaps that same justification could be used against us. If another country doesn't like the leader of a country, do they have a right to invade and remove that leader? Why don't we do that in Iran or North Korea or Sudan or Libya or Liberia or in any of hundreds of other countries that don't agree with us? Are we just the biggest bully on the block right now and willing to force everyone else to do things our way or else? That's not what we are about. That's not why we fought for our independence. Somewhere along the line, we have taken on the role of Earth's policeman and that isn't what we should be about. If we take this attitude of “Convert or Die”, we aren't much better than other empires and tyrants that have come and gone before us.

On the other hand, if we conclude our operation swiftly and turn their nation back over to them and get our troops out, we may be showing a different face than what we are showing right now. We'll see if this was about getting rid of Saddam and freeing the people or if it was about controlling the oil. I don't see us rushing into Iran or North Korea to free the people, but maybe their rulers aren't as bad or their countries don't offer the same resources.