Oh yes... I have issues. No secret about that, but today, I want to talk about one specific issue: the Iraq war. This is prompted by the war protests that went on around the country the other day. And a post by Brittney at NIT about a soldier's story of working with a paralyzed girl (not the fault of the war - she was paralyzed well before it happened) and the snarky and rude comment made by someone in response.
It is no secret that I was in favor of the war in Iraq. I believed it was a good idea. Saddam was threatening and not abiding by the UN resolutions for inspections and such. He wasn't quite the buffer between Iran and Israel that he used to be (which is why I think we didn't take him out in 1991 - the power vaccum left in his wake would have been more than ripe for Iran... which it now is... and left Israel in a very vulnerable state). I did the Protest Warrior thing (and I still think Kfir is hot.)
I think there are those on the left who try to pretend Iraq was some lovely place full of rainbows and streams of flowers. It wasn't. Hussein is an evil man who tortured and terrified his people. As bad as some think George W. Bush has been, at the very least he has not released gas over his own people to kill them. Think about those innocent Iraqis when speaking of the Iraqis that have died. Here was a government that continually threatened its neighbors and (former) allies to the point of invading them. They also funded terrorism by paying the families of suicide bombers.
I'm also a flag-waving proud-to-be-an American type. I know the words to the various Armed Forces songs and can sing all those patrotic 4th of July stuff. Blah-blah.
Part of the reason I haven't wanted to say anything publically about my dwindling support for the war in Iraq is that I do not want to be lumped in with the left-leaning hippies (as if that mistake could be made. Possibly since the women I meet in my belly dance classes all seem to think I'm a hippy when I haven't given them any reason to think otherwise. We don't talk politics. I'm there to dance.) And as I have said before: I hate hippies. I haven't quite progressed to the Eric Cartman level of hippie hating, though. I'm sure hippies hate me - so it's all mutual.
I've also not wanted to because I am immensly proud of those in the military. With my brother over there (not anymore - he's back in the US as of this morning), I don't want to pull a Cindy Sheehan type move and dishonor their service. The lunatic fringe overshadows the entire debate so that we can't actually discuss it.
Truthfully, I think they should have split Iraq into three countries controlled by their dominant factions: Kurdish, Shiites, and Sunni.
Can one say "I disagree with this" and still honestly support the troops? Am I just buying into the constant negative press? There are good things happening there but at what cost? Christians feel less safe now than they did under Hussein. When does the price get to be too high?
