Tragedies of the Invasion of Iraq. Part 2. Shattered lives of so many Americans
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Everyday we are faced with decisions that require us to make ethical choices. And there are times when we as a community or as a nation make decisions that involve ethical choices. Going to war is certainly a very big moral/ethical choice and our faith is dictating our choice. Now, we can make mistakes but to not learn from our mistakes only means we are likely to repeat the mistake.
War is very destructive and there is loss of life and memory of it haunts the soldiers who fight in it. This is especially true where the war is not between two armies but in a urban setting with potential of harm and casualties to civilians, something that is true of all modern wars. We asked hundreds of thousands of our men and women to go fight this war Iraq. Most of them are simple honest ordinary citizens who found themselves in a very difficult situation. Most of them did the best they could, some lost there lives, a lot of others suffered physical injuries and many others suffer from the memories. I have had the occasion to get to know a few of Iraq war veterans and found them to be straightforward, honest Americans who were trying to put their lives back together. Initially they did not like to talk about what happened over there but in later meetings each one admitted that they still have nightmares about it.
Unfortunately the parallels to the Vietnam War are now plain for any one to see. We now know that the Vietnamese did not attack in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the pretext for invading Vietnam. We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, the pretext for invading Iraq. We have a generation of Vietnam veterans many of whom never fully adjusted to civilian life after the war. We have now hundreds of thousands of Iraq War veterans and their families suffering the consequences of this ill-conceived invasion. Isn’t it time we start learning from our mistakes and not repeat them and not put so many of our fellow citizens in harms way unnecessarily?
Many religious communities throughout our nation strongly supported President Bush when this war was started. They said we believe and trust our President and we want to support our troops. What about now? Where do they stand now when we know that all the assertions for starting the war were false? There was no threat from Iraq to our nation. There were no WMDs, there was no missile technology to fire any WMDs, there was no link with 9/11 or Al-Qaida.
True faith means remaining true to our faith. And if we make a mistake be honest in admitting it. That is the starting point to the process of healing. There is a very poignant moment in the movie ‘Clear and Present Danger’ where a small group of soldiers is sent into a South American country and then because of murky politics they are left there without support. The CIA asst. Director who had initially managed the operation felt personally morally responsible and decides to go rescue these soldiers. When they finally get there only one soldier is alive and he attacks them saying why did you leave us here to die? Who is to blame? And the character played by Harrison Ford says ‘It is my fault, I am to blame’ and the soldier becomes much less agitated. Honesty starts the healing. We have the real example of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It gave rest to many a troubled soul just to hear the perpetuators of the horrors of apartheid admit their guilt.
We asked a great sacrifice of our fellow citizens. We are all to blame for Iraq. We need to openly say all the truths of what led to the Invasion of Iraq, what were all our mistakes, what were all the falsehood and lies. Truth and honesty are the first and most important form of respect. We owe our soldiers, who sacrificed so much, this honesty. We did not do this with the veterans from the Vietnam war and they suffered all their lives. Honesty and admission of fault today is the way to honor the Iraq veterans and their families, not perpetuation of lies. Lets not repeat the mistake this time. Only then can true healing begin.
Khalid Shah, 50, is an American Muslim who came to the U.S. 32 years ago. He and his wife have lived in the St. Louis area since 1990, and have been active in a variety of interfaith activities as well as in the local Muslim communities. They have both spoken about Islam at a variety of houses of worship. After working as an engineer for most of his career, he is currently a small business owner. 
Kahlid,
Resist the urge of monday morning quarterbacking. “If we knew then what we know now” is unfair and dishonest. Was it trumped up? Did we really expect to find WMD’s? I really can’t say that eitehr are the case. You can call it ill conceived, but without clearance to see classified information that the decision makers were going off of, YOUR OPINION means little. Let’s admit that it is JUST an opinion - you are riding a razor’s edge of the fallacy of presuming your opinion to be fact with little proof.
Let’s face it, this war would have been pretty open and shut if not for the absurd aftermath of Islamic radicalism. We went to war with Saddam Hussein, and then got attacked by those that would take advantage of chaos to get their pound of flesh against a great infidel that set foot on their soil - and then If were in the business of blame, let’s give those guys their due. They could have had their country handed to them and then put it together peacefully, but that was not even an option on the table. There are too many groups that refuse to get along without terrible violence and they all wanted hurt eachother and us.
When we play this game, we marginalize both the cost and value of freedom. Surely you forgot to include the fact that the freedom that Iraqi’s now have is coveted. The huge participation in their first election should stand as a reminder of what was gained.
A movie?Really?And hardly a parallel to situation and circumstances in Iraq.
The soldier in the movie was angry and demanded to know why they were abandoned,not why they were there.
And should I believe that this blog is your ‘let me be the first to stand up and apologize’?
I saw no personal responsibility or apology in your words.
The healing begins with - you fought,were injured, and some died for no reason?
Muslims were just minding their own business,
Your politics and propaganda know no bounds.Bravo.
A special case of Murphy’s law: If nuclear war can happen, it will happen. It was to prevent Saddam from having nuclear weapons - and other WMD’s - that the invasion of Iraq occurred. His past activity indicated he would likely use weapons of mass destruction if he had them. The invasion of Iraq never would have happened if Saddam had let the UN inspectors do their work. Incredibly, he was more afraid of his neighbors - who he wanted to think he had WMD’s - than the UN approved coalition that defeated him.
The mistake we made was relying on a faulty intelligence system, our own and others. No one, in hindsight, can say a mistake was not made but that does not mean that the decision to invade Iraq was immoral. The perception was the world was threated and something had to be done to eliminate the threat.
Obviously, it was a mistake to invade Iraq and not have a plan for what we were going to do with it. I trust our government has learned something and a poorly planned Iraq style adventure will not happen again.
Intent means something. Our service people have taken part in an event designed to discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We should be grateful and not cheapen their sacrifice with suggestions the invasion of Iraq was a nefariously planned exercise.
Khalid:
The American people refutiated the Iraq war and the ecomony by voting in mass for Democratics. When the Democratics screw up and they will, we will be back voting for Republicans. This ping pong game will continue. Too many people listen to radio and tv half listening and rush out to do or say whatever they are told by their political guru. It’s is playing out in Health care and it played out in saving our Nation from those awful terriorist hiding in Iraq, who will be in our bedroom next. Keep telling people the truth some will actually research and come to their own conclusions but the majority of us will still wait for Rush to tell us who to hate. Rick
President Clinton also believed Iraq had WMD’s. Every one of our allies thought this. There were connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Iraq did have WMD’s at one point, as shown in their chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds. Iraq openly threatened the US. Their defied weapons inspectors. It also isn’t certain if they truly didn’t have WMD’s. Certainly they could have been dismantled and smuggled out to Syria before we reached them.
Let’s also not forget why we got to this point in Iraq. In 1992, we should have finished the job. We should have done then what we had to do in 2003. Instead, we gave the UN a chance and look what that gave us.
To compare this war to Vietnam is ridiculous. Vietnam was in a completely different league. However, there is one shocking similarity. Both in Vietnam, and in this war, your kind showed a vile hatred of our troops and you continuously showed almost treasonous behavior by undermining the war effort. To act now like you are compassionate to them is a slap in the face.
Mikew and Davel,
There were no WMD’s and the main point is that lives of our people are precious. We should not keep repeating mistakes. To keep with the sport analogy, every good team does a post-mortem on Monday to see what worked and what did not. If you think this is to get back at George W and co., I suggest lets just pardon them and then have the inquiry. We spend over $30 Billion on intelligence every year, how could we get it so wrong? Over 4000 of our soldiers died and tens of thousands are injured for life. We need to start getting things right before committing hundreds of thousands of troops to a war and you start by looking at what went wrong. I cannot see all this sacrifice to remove a evil dictator. There are plenty of them around. We should only go to war if we are threatened. And our soldiers should only be sent to war when we are sure there is a threat to us.
Kahlid,
American involvement in the Iraq war is winding down. So, if the main point is that lives of our people are precious and we should not keep repeating mistakes, why are we blogging about Iraq? The moral imperative is our involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ostensibly, we are there to deny Al-Qaeda a Taliban base but it looks a lot like Iraq in that we are trying to keep nuclear weapons away from dangerous people as well. Where we were successful with Saddam Hussein, we failed with A.Q.Kahn and the Pakistan government. See the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan
If the objective is to deny Al-Qaeda a Taliban base but so many of the Taliban are in Pakistan or if the objective is to deny Al-Qaeda and the Taliban access to nuclear weapons when the nearest nuclear weapons are in Pakistan with a government that has been sympathetic to the Taliban, why aren’t we in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan?
Are the stated reasons for being militarily involved in Afghanistan and Pakistan lies as well? If so, what is the truth? Who will do the inquisition? Maybe they could talk to the other George:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tenet#Tenet_and_Iraq_WMD_controversy
To prove that President Bush lied you would have to prove he knew the intelligence community was lying to him. Explain how G.W. Bush could or should have known Saddam did not have WMD’s.
Davel,
The main point is we need to ‘learn’ from our mistakes. Not doing that only means we are likely to repeat them and that is a terrible thing. The results in Iraq show that we made not small but huge mistakes and it is therefore all the more important we try to learn from them to make sure we do not commit our troops to such situations in the future. I made reference to Vietnam. 30+ years later we find out that the war was a mistake, when we are already engaged in Iraq which is proving to be very similar in nature. I cannot tell you who lied, who was at fault but we need to figure out what can we do to avoid such a situation in the future.
Afghanistan/Pakistan is a different matter and is Part 3 of this series so I won’t write too much here except to say yes that is a war we have to fight and that was the war we should have been fighting all along.