Tragedies of the Invasion of Iraq. Part 3. The gift that keeps on giving to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda
www.thepeoplesvoice.org
War is always a source of misery for many that stand in its path but sometimes one cannot avoid a war. After 9/11 it was clear we must address the source of this attack on US soil. And the source of the attack on 9/11 and was in Afghanistan. When the US launched its forces to attack positions of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11/2001, there was almost unanimous support worldwide. The Taliban had provided a safe haven for Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. And they were a danger not just to us. Unfortunately from the beginning the war in Afghanistan was not done properly. We never committed even 1/5th the number of troops to Afghanistan compared to those sent to Iraq. If we had put in place the resources that later were committed for Iraq we would have gotten rid of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
But instead a decision was made to invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the tragedy of 9/11/2001 nor posed any threat to us. And once the invasion of Iraq was undertaken, military resources in Afghanistan were cut. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are a cancer and giving 7+ years for this cancer to grow unabated is a very long time, as a map of Afghanistan from 2007 shows.
But our war in Iraq did not only give them time to regroup, it also served another purpose for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. It helped them recruit a lot of new members. They could point to Iraq and say that US is fighting Islam because there was no other reason to attack Iraq. Perception is often reality. Extremists love to hate each other. They need this hate to exist and to grow. Just like we have people among us who still believe there were WMDs in Iraq and that we were correct in invading Iraq, there are extremists in other societies who put our actions in the worst light. Just like when an extremist action or story comes up from over there it gets splashed across the ‘conservative’ media channels, similarly statements made here by people saying the war in Iraq was correct and there were WMDs there and Iraq was a threat are splashed by extremists and used as recruiting tools. Hate feeds each other. Hate is a powerful emotion and used by extremists to great advantage on both sides.
So today Saddam Hussein is dead and Osama bin Laden, as far as we know, is still alive. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Osama bin Laden was the head of the organization that carried out the attacks on 9/11. The greatest tragedy of the Invasion of Iraq is that it started an unnecessary war that replaced a war we should have fought. The rush to invade a nation without any proof of them attacking us was not only immoral it also took us away from fighting an enemy who clearly attacked us. As we are preparing to leave Iraq, by the looks of it, the government we leave may leave shortly too. And it could be that there is no lasting positive impact of our invasion of Iraq.
Morality requires us to have the courage to admit when we are wrong. The decision to invade Iraq was an immoral decision. And our decision today to justify this immoral war only helps to strengthen this enemy today. We have in Afghanistan right now what can best be described as a propped up puppet government which, because if its bad actions, often has less support among the population compared to the Taliban. Many experts believe that it is no longer possible to win the war in Afghanistan. We can only pray that things work out in Afghanistan for us and for its people and there is some path to Peace and Justice.
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. 
Sorry, Khalid. With all due respect, this is a political screed, not a column on faith or religion.
I understand the desire to keep things separate but there are two things to keep in mind. Any moral decisions are, hopefully, guided by our religious principles and these three articles I wanted to show different aspects of the Invasion of Iraq and how it was immoral. The war that needed to be fought in 2001 was in Afghanistan. Secondly, the manner in which the war in Iraq has progressed has made it seem an entirely religious war (the comment of a Crusade made by very senior people in our government was played and replayed over ‘there’ just like things are played and replayed adnaseum on some channels here).
Religion does intersect with other realms and they need to be discussed. It is this lack of desire to discuss that can be a source of us doing the same mistakes all over.
I hesitate to even dignify another “immoral war” post with a response.
Look as long as we’re making subjective and dogmatic assertions of the morality of difficult and complex decisions, let me make a few:
It’s immoral to marginalize the devastation that would flow from disruption of middle-eastern oil supply.
It’s immoral to present moral superiority by oversimplifying difficult and complex decisions of others in an effort to suite your cause and opinion (yes, not fact, opinion) - I’m pretty sure you would claim that President Bush did this, and yet here you are doing the same.
If the police acted on a tip that your neighbor had in his possession pipe bombs, then raided his house to find only explosives some pieces of bombs, plans for building bombs, plans on how to make his enemies believe he had bombs, you would say “they got him just in time.” So believing the WMD issue is not on the same level as the Islamic radical propoganda, and it’s immoral to make such a comparison.
I can make one more subjective moral assertion:
Had we let Saddam get what he claimed to have, had the makings of, and clearly wanted, and let him unpredictably use them against the Jews, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, or us, it would have been immoral. There are many sides to this issue, and I truly think you refuse to take the step back from your heritage and religion to actually view them fairly.
There is no black and white decision to be made with war. There is no war without bad things happening to good people. People in power have to balance the bad of war with the bad that would happen, could happen, or is happening without war. It’s not easy, and sitting back six years after the fact and judging the morality of the decision may feel good, but it just not intellectually honest, fair or even moral.
Being moral means being honest enough with yourself and having the courage to admit that you don’t know the real situation that the world leaders of the time knew, you don’t have a crystal ball to know what devastation would have happened without the war, and the humility to admit that it was in fact a complex situation. Being moral requires the intellectual honesty to admit that a tough decision cannot be fairly criticized by falsely reducing it to invalidly simple terms.
I will end by agreeing that getting a better handle on Afghanistan would have been a good idea before we moved into Iraq. But lets face it, even without 9/11 Saddam was a problem that needed to be dealt with. Ask Bill Clinton. If Desert Fox had worked, and we had never set foot on Iraqi soil, this exact aftermath – multiplied many times would have ensued. The arguing parties would have argued, fought for power and nobody would have been there to even try to stabalize it. We had been teetering on the edge of war with Iraq since the first one. My biggest issue is that we didn’t need to use 9/11 as a reason for it. It was a foreign policy wake up call, but I can’t say it was fair to relate it directly to Iraq.
Getting rid of criminals like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is a moral decision. We are seeing a resurgence in Taliban and Al Qaeda activity in Afganistan because our ally, Pakistan, gave them a safe haven along the Afghan border. Only recently has the government of Pakistan seen their mistake and is taking a more active role toward eliminating Al Qaeda leaders from Pakistan.
Khalid, I think you are making a mistake when you characterize this conflict as a war between nations. It has always been aimed toward eliminating bad characters, who desire access to WMD’s and who have shown they would use them if they had them.
In regard to Hnelson64’s comment….
This thread is done in one. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Mr Shah, if it were up to you, we would have not attacked either country and we would be seeing our cities in ruins today. Please, if you are going to post this type of stuff, do it under the Platform section not here.
Whats done is done. It is time now to make way for peace. In Afganistan the problem is Osama we must have our man. It is not for revenge it is secure us from further attack. We should have dealt with him many years ago but neglected to apply our strength to this problem. In Iraq the problem is a little different we have tired of the struggle and wish to leave in peace. We have suffered if that has any meaning to our enemies. The current government in Iraq will just have to deal with its own people itself. So now the politics the government in America is dragging its feet. It once said it wanted out quickly but now has decided to over stay its welcome if it ever had any. Thus we are at an impass how can we get out without further loss of life. Our enemies have stepped up operations giving our government feet of clay. A lull in hostilities is not likely. Thus the United States will need to leave under fire or fight back. The situation is impossible and has been since we rolled into Bagdad. We are surrounded giving the enemy the option to strike from any direction at a moment of their choosing. Once struck we have fire superiority. Yet we still can not avoid causalities. Thus we are locked in this death grip with no way out. Thus I say a political remedy is called for in this situation.
We could have carpet bombed their population centers with B-52s and turned them into rubble without ever having to send trops in on the ground.
This is obviously another propaganda hit piece. There is ZERO connection to 9/11 and Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want the perps who committed 9/11 you have to look in Tel Aviv and Washington DC, New York and New Jersey. If this is a column about religion then it’s so obvious it’s like a bucket of cold water in the face - it’s the jews, stupid!
You can no more separate religion and politics in the middle east than you can be an agnostic and run for political office in this country. Once we evolve beyond being led by superstition we can have true peace in our time.