(Here is an essay I found in my documents file on an old computer from nearly a decade ago. Substitute Iran for Iraq, Tehran for Baghdad, President Obama for President Bush, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Saddam Hussein, and we end up with a timely look at what's going on in our country and our allies today.)
Sadly, a war requires the loss of a large sum of human lives. In addition, President Bush is putting lives at stake for a strike at a presently unproved opponent.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) comments, “It is un-American to attack people because of a perceived future threat, killing, potentially, thousands of non-combatants and our own young men and women. It is madness!”
Never in the history of the United States of America has an administration used a first strike policy. This policy is plainly immoral and an attack on our own constitution as well as the UN Charter. In addition, an attack on Hussein may be useless.
The Nonviolence Web explains, “Two incredibly bloody wars have failed to oust him, indeed have only strengthened his hold on power, and it is quite doubtful that further military action will create a real peace for Iraq, the Middle East, or the planet."
To rid Iraq of Hussein, the U.S. government needs to discuss alternatives to war. Peace saves lives, war destroys them and that of future generations.
Lastly, an attack on Iraq would threaten the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis. The killing of innocent civilians will raise the hatred of Iraq’s youth, who may become terrorist, which is the exact group the U.S. is trying to stop.
According to Phyllis Bennis, a policy analyst and expert on Iraq at the Institute of Policy Studies, “Ten thousand Iraqi civilians, or more, would be killed in a large scale U.S. attack. Baghdad is a city roughly the size of Los Angeles; an air campaign and invasion of the city would put four to five million civilians at risk."
Iraqis are presently suffering greatly from economic sanctions, and as the result, millions of civilians have died, 500,000 of whom are children under the age of five. Another attack would seem on the brink of evil, considering these conditions. If Bush is attempting to destroy terrorism through an attack on Iraq, he is terribly mistaken.