“I want to be just like my daddy!” Or not. The lack of solid reasons to invade Iraq makes me think more and more that Bush Jr. is just trying to “finish what his daddy started” 10 years ago.
Supposedly, this invasion is for the protection of the American people; yet, with disasters such as September 11 still freshly imprinted in our minds, I question the government’s true abilities to protect America from another horrible attack within our borders. The still-present security gaps, with target places such as airports, further prove that the government is not serving the people’s interests. It seems as though concentration has shifted from directly improving security on our turf to endangering innocent lives by shipping people out to war.
It’s pathetic to see how fast our world is going down the drain because of our wonderful world leaders showing each other how big their guns are, or saying and doing things to show “Look! We’ve got Missiles!” and “Look! Biological weapons!” and “Look how many billions we spent on defense this time, never mind our growing economic problems!” It looks as though leaders are making sure our generation can re-experience the horrors of war over the last century that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were so unfortunate to encounter. Only this time it involves “weapons of mass destruction,” that only have the potential of affecting our society and environment for the rest of our planet’s existence if not blowing it out of the solar system.
The irony of the whole situation is that our country tries so hard to relieve other countries of their destructive and biological defenses yet with the billions we allot to defense, it makes you wonder what we else have hidden within our back pockets besides horrid weapons such as Napalm.
I don’t want to be like my daddy and fight a war like the one he did 10 years ago. Nor do I want to remain under leaders who fight invisible enemies like terrorism, similar to the bloopers we got involved in by trying to fight Communism.
Blowing up countries does not solve social injustices or dethrone ringleaders (as seen with Bin-Laden), but only makes us place our energies continually in a losing battle with ideologies outside of our own.
Marquita Bell is a sophomore majoring in print journalism and political science. She can be reached at m_bell01@hotmail.com.