It Isn’t About America

I was doing some more pondering on my incoherent opinion on Iraq, (read a previous oponion here) due to a post by a solder in Iraq. If you want my whole opinion, you need to read to the end (or just scroll to the end and read the last paragraph)

I can't verify it, but according to Duke in Iraq, the following was published in the Stars and Stripes. I think it represents the feelings of most of the troops very well, and helps show why I have such muddled feelings on the whole thing.

I’d like Jane to witness Iraqi women demonstrating for their right to participate in the drafting of the Iraqi constitution. She could park her eco-van in front of a local Iraqi father whose four children were just murdered by insurgents, or visit the families of Iraqi soldiers who died fighting for a free Iraq

She could witness headless bodies of children floating in the Tigris River and view pictures of mass graves, one showing a child size skeleton still clinging to its mother’s leg. She should protest in front of families clawing at these graves with bare hands, tears streaming down their weathered cheeks. Tell any of those people that this war is wrong.

Read the rest of the post here.

In light of this, does it really matter if there were weapons of mass destruction; is America's safety and security, (or better said, America's financial safety and security) the only thing that matters?

And yet, I still wonder if it was worth it. Mine is a muddled opinion. The reason I think it may not have been worth it is based on the possibly naive idea that there may have been another way, a less violent way, a less costly way, (I’m thinking of the lives and limbs, not the dollars) to get this done.

So when I read of the good that happens, or the horrors of Saddam’s regime, I think “great, praise God something good has happened”, but of course I always here the bad as well, and then I wonder, “could we possibly have done this any other way?” Especially when I ponder on the motives of our leaders.

Not that it mattes. Were in now and we need to find the best possible solution for the people of Iraq, and maybe our own as an after thought.

I guess that is what separates me from the overwhelming majority of…well, just about everyone. I want what is best for the people of Iraq, not that I’m the only one who feels this way, or have any idea what that is, (maybee someone should ask them), but to appose the war based on the idea that it was not in the best interest of America is entirely too nationalistic for me, particularly as a Christian. And yet I’m afraid that the majority that support the war do so for similarly nationalistic reasons, wanting to prove to the world that we will not be beaten. In the end, it isen't about America.