I mainly hear the liberal side about why war is catastrophic and how greedy President Bush and his cronies are-two premises I agree with. War can bring considerable consequences and George W. Bush and his buddies are avaricious. However, I’d like everyone to consider the reasons why I don’t think destructive war is likely in Iraq.
First, going to war in Iraq is not that easy. Bush and friends have billions of dollars worth of oil interests in the Middle East, including Iraq. Most Arab countries are part of OPEC, even Iraq. If we tick off OPEC and oil shipments to the US are cut, where are we going to get our oil from, Alaska? There’s too much controversy to drill there.
Second, war has nothing to do with freedom fighting on either side. Hey, Americans have also killed off cultures and then depicted them to be the bad guys, like Native Americans. Instead of freedom, war happens to be an interest in money by taking over world markets. If Iraq were to take over the world, then we have to live the Iraqi way of life because they would dominate the world market. We Americans are not used to being killed for our rather rebellious attitude and free speech. However, Americans dominate world markets so what’s the big deal?
Third, I do sympathize with Bush’s logic for preemption to take out Saddam Hussein. If no one wants to hear about oil, or oppressed people, or et cetera, then at least appreciate this aspect in American history. People did not consider much about Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin as being ruthless, empirical tyrants who want to conquer the world during the heights of their regimes. Well folks, look what happened: World War II and the Cold War. Saddam Hussein is easily another Stalin judging by his ruthlessness to his own people. I think it is in our best interests to prevent any further acts of harm to us. Whether or not we might be oppressive is questionable. But ask yourself this: Who will die, you or they? Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for concerned humanitarians.
Last, if war in Iraq were that imminent, wouldn’t we have done something already instead of waiting seventeen months after 9/11?
Seth Bleicher can be contacted at sethbleicher@yahoo.com.