The world we live in is diverse place with all kinds of people who believe in all kinds of religions and follow many different schools of political ideology. When groups disagree it seems to me the most logical thing to do is try and convince the opposing party that they are wrong and we are right. To put it very simply I just don’t see how killing people and destroying their families, homes and very way of life accomplishes this goal.
Sometimes negotiating and discussing the differences between states breaks down. When this happens people do really stupid things. This is where I become a bit conflicted. See, I joined the military before September 11, 2001. I felt that the response to these attacks were justified because we were responding to an attack (which could be argued were in response to attacks by the US in the past). When my unit was deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom I happily loaded bombs and didn’t mind the long hours and poor conditions. The way I saw it, I was doing what I was doing so that my sisters could live in peace and my mother could teach and my friends could carry on with their lives. It seemed to me, in part because of statements made by Mr. Bin Laden, that if we didn’t kill all of these guys they wouldn’t stop until they had killed all of us. As the campaign wore on my resolve began to slip. How was it that wiping entire villages from the face of the earth was going to win the support of the Afghan people? When we killed ten fighters we made twelve more…

When I returned to the states and saw the posturing and rhetoric coming from the White House I began to get very worried. It seemed that there were a very powerful group of people at the highest levels of our government who weren’t going to stop until they had me in Iraq. What really blew my mind was the fact that they were openly talking about “preemptive” war. Well, not only did the bastards talk about it, they sent us to do it. By my way of thinking there is never a justification for preemptive war. Once you do this you can never go back to the way things were before. In my mind America was not the sort of country that attacked first… sort of like on the playground… it’s okay to hit back if someone hit you first, but no matter what names they called you could never throw that first punch… well. The war on Iraq began and the lies began to pile up. We were there to get Bin Laden. We were there to keep Saddam from dropping a nuke on Washington. We were there to free the Iraqi people. All complete and utter bullshit.

We are in Iraq today because of its strategic importance to the greater Middle East and because of the vast oil reserves that the place floats on. The argument could be made that this is necessary to preserve the American way of life. We need cheap oil to power our farms, SUVs, urban sprawl, etc. Without cheap oil things in the US would have to change over the coming decades (I think they will anyway, but I digress). If the US didn’t/doesn’t establish it’s dominance in the Middle East then some other power will. If this other power happened to hate the US because of all the nasty shit we’ve done to it/them over the past 100 years then we might be in a bit of a pickle. How can we solve this problem? I’m not sure, but I know what we’re doing now is not the correct answer to that question. In fact, using force of arms in any way is no the answer. In my opinion the answer is to turn the Middle East back into what it was 150 years ago: a desert. Without the wealth generated by oil revenues what is Iraq? A desert. Will we need to bomb anyone? Nope. Just stop buying/stealing the oil.
Will this be hard? You bet. But ask yourself: am I willing to reduce my consumption of resources in order to save just one human life? Am I willing to starve myself to feed one baby? Am I willing to take the bus rather than kill a village full of women and children?

Anyway. There’s my worldview in a nutshell. Let me know if/where you disagree. Maybe you can tell me something I don’t know that will change my mind. Even if you can’t, I promise I won’t kill your family and blow up your house.