This week marks the third anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. I have spent some time today reading articles online about these past 3 years; where we have been and where we are going. At this point, 2,314 Americans have been killed in Iraq. The official count of Americans wounded is over 18,000. The number of Iraqi people killed is officially around 30,000, although some reports place that number closer to 45,000. The number of wounded Iraqi people is over 100,000. The financial cost of the war so far is estimated to be between $200 and $250 billion.
So, is it worth it? Has something been gained that is worth the cost of over 35,000 lives, thousands and thousands of missing limbs and charred flesh, billions of dollars? I’m not asking that question because I know the answer. I don’t and I’m not sure anyone else knows the answer yet either. The most moving article I ran across was an online slideshow that told the story of 4 young soldiers wounded in Iraq. This is the link. When you get to that page, go down the list and click on “Wounded in the Line of Duty.” These young men, just kids really, are heros who believed there was honor in what they were being asked to do and have ended up making some pretty incredible sacrifices on behalf of their country. They represent the thousands of stories just like theirs. I hope, for their sake, that it has been worth it. Even if it ultimately proves that their sacrifice was not worth the gain, we owe them our support and respect and gratitude for being willing to step up and pay the price based on decisions that were made by our leaders. I was moved to tears by their stories and I hope you will go and watch the slideshow in their honor.
Here’s what scares me about this war, beyond the obvious things. I am troubled by the pervasive attitude in our country today that questioning the war or the president’s decisions makes you “unAmerican” or “unpatriotic.” I am troubled by the tendency of many American Christians to elevate patriotism as a virtue to a level equal to or synonomous with personal holiness…as if Jesus was an American and loves us more than He loves the Iraqis. I am troubled by the arrogance with which our leaders speak to us when we ask questions about when our kids can come home from Iraq and if anyone has a plan to end this war; like we are naughty, stupid children who need to be spoken to more slowly and firmly. I am troubled by the exploitation of our fear of terrorism to justify the torture of human beings and illegal spying on our citizens…just like our fear of communism was exploited during the McCarthy hearings in the last century (if you haven’t seen the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” you definitely should.)
My husband’s take on this war is that we won’t know in this generation whether or not this has all been worth it. He believes that it may take 20 years to know if these actions marked the beginning of the long-term stabilization of the Middle East. He’s a pretty smart guy and he may very well be right (don’t tell him I said that 🙂 Perhaps, in our microwave society, we are too concerned with quick fixes and immediate results. Perhaps, it is too soon to know whether all of these people, Americans and Iraqis, have died in vain…or those 4 young men in the slideshow have suffered in a useless cause. But, I would suggest that we can’t allow ourselves to become calloused to those death tolls or the stories of the wounded. We have to keep asking the questions and demanding the answers. And keep praying for ALL the people involved, not just the Americans.
Good thoughts Kelly. I also think the problem with questioning these things being equated with being un-patriotic, and that in turn, being somehow un-Chrisitan, is especially troubling.
I remember those older than I am telling me about watching the Nuremburg trials, hearing people talk about how unquestioned obedience isn’t an excuse — that those on trial for war crimes in Nazi Germany had the moral responsibility to question the actions of those above them.
Sometimes it feels to me like we have a very short collective memory.
Thanks for the post.
RPS
OK so I’m only the second pastor to comment on this, but I say ‘Amen Sister!’ As an outsider, an immigrant, I have a very different perspective on the whole ‘God bless America’ thing. I hate to disagree with Steve on this, especially on your blog, but having grown up in Belfast I may have a little credibility when it comes to terrorism and I think we’ve lost this one. I agree the final verdict won’t be clear for years to come, but I can tell you that if there is any level of organized insurgency then it’s lost. Just ask how many active IRA cells (4-6 people) it took to keep thousands of British troops in Northern Ireland for 30 years. I can understand the US response to Iraq because it has little history of terrorism but the UK’s repsonse… when will they ever learn? I only hope that the UK and the other allied forces don’t bail again as they did in Korea and Vietnam or maybe it was a case that the US tried to finish a couple of wars that the other nations realised much earlier where unwinnable.
Great post! I thought from the beginning that the Iraq invasion was very high risk strategy for potential high payoff that won’t come quickly. While terrorism was the precipitating event, the larger question is about ending all types of tyranny and spreading democracy and prosperity. I am skeptical about this particular nation-building strategy but I am very much supportive of the goal. I pray that this works while at the same time we find better strategies.
As to war opposition, I think there are a number of reasons why some would find themselves in opposition to the war. I hear the same vitriolic dismissal of war opponents you do. But there are also war opponents, including leading Democrat leaders, who make the most outlandish claims like Bush lied or we are in this only for the oil. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 painted Bush as both a bumbling country bumpkin and a sinister international mastermind. Just as war opponents feel demonized by those who question their patriotism, so do war supporters feel demonized by those he cast them as automaton idiots or sinister imperialists. It seems to me that one of things that we who follow Christ could do is to ratchet down the vitriol and increase open and respectful discourse.
Thanks a great reflection.
Excellent points, gentlemen! An especially good reminder from Michael about our responsibility as Christians to keep the discussion open and respectful. I agree that we must reject the rhetoric of those war opponents who insist on the vilification of President Bush. While I have often disagreed with his decisions, I have never doubted his sincere desire to do the right thing for our country. Or doubted his faith in the same God whom I worship. He is my brother in Christ regardless of our differing viewpoints.
Thanks again for your comments, gentlemen (and thanks for the nod on your blog, Neil!)
Allright, ladies, let’s hear your thoughts on the subject!
Hi Kelly-I post to Neil’s site sometime and he linked me to you…so blame him ;).
In regards to the unfortunate loss of life caused by the war, compare that to life under Hussein: According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, “victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks… some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage.”
Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths.
Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam’s 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds. The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths. o 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.
According to Human Rights Watch, “senior Arab diplomats told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper al-Hayat in October [1991] that Iraqi leaders were privately acknowledging that 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings, with most of the casualties in the south.” Refugees International reports that the “Oppressive government policies have led to the internal displacement of 900,000 Iraqis, primarily Kurds who have fled to the north to escape Saddam Hussein’s Arabization campaigns (which involve forcing Kurds to renounce their Kurdish identity or lose their property) and Marsh Arabs, who fled the government’s campaign to dry up the southern marshes for agricultural use. More than 200,000 Iraqis continue to live as refugees in Iran.” Iraq’s 13 million Shi’a Muslims, the majority of Iraq’s population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.
It comes down to this: in a post 9/11 world, when a world leader who has used WMDs against his own people, claims to still have WMD’s, and all allied intel agencies besides our own claim he has WMDs, and said leader is pledged to the destruction of the U.S., is it not a President’s duty to take action?
War is awful. Maniacal Homicidal Dictators are worse.
I thank God we are In Iraq and for every purple finger waved when 80% of the population turns out to vote.
Your husband sounds like a wise man…and for the record, I don’t think you are unpatriotic! Wrong, but not unpatriotic 😉
Daniel, thank you so much for your post. It is just this type of respectful discussion that I want to encourage here.
I certainly don’t disagree with anything you said about Saddam Hussein…I don’t think anyone who questions the war thinks Sadaam was a good guy! He is and was the embodiment of evil. I guess my question to you and others who pose this arguement is this: what about all the rest of the homicidal maniacal dictators in the world right now? Why this one and not the others? Kim Jong (hope I am spelling that right) in North Korea is practically spitting in our collective American face, yet we haven’t invaded his country yet. And what about what is happening in Darfur…when are we going to do something to stop the genocide there? I guess at some point we are going to have to find a better way to deal with violence than with more violence…or perhaps we just need to have a better plan for the times when violence is our only option…and yes, I do believe that sometimes it is the only option. It MAY have even been the only option this time…but I still wonder and I still reserve the right to keep asking questions. This war, whether it was right or wrong in its intentions, has been handled poorly in many ways and there seems to be no end in sight.
We can’t take on every bad guy in the world. Whether we like it or not, we do have limited resources; military resources, financial resources, “emotional” resources (if you will) and we have to keep talking about the best use of those resources. How about these statistics:
Every year, 14 million children under the age of 5 die of preventable diseases.
Every day, almost 40,000 children die of malnutrition.
One out of three children on this planet are malnourished.
The price to give all of the world’s children antibiotics, vaccinations, and other necessary treatment, is equivalent to 2% of the Third World’s expenditures on weapons (and roughly the cost of five stealth bombers or the annual advertising budget of US tobacco companies.)
We are a wealthy nation; I just want to make sure that we are being good stewards of our resources!!!
Again, thanks for your comments!! Hope you will comment again…your voice is welcome here.
Good question, and the best answer I’ve heard to the question of why don’t we invade so-and-so is in the form of an analogy: I get dozens of requests for money from charities and nonprofit per year; I can’t help all of them, but I can pick a few (e.g., CPC!) to focus on.
You are right-we cannot take on everyone. We quite literally have to pick our battles. One difference between South Korea and Iraq is Iraq has recently demonstrated its aggression (against Iran, Kuwait). Another is we had some 16 sanctions against them stating “if you don’t comply there will be consequences.”
As far as malnutrition and disease, the biggest problems are not lack of largesse but corrupt governments (mostly dictators) take the money donated by the rest of the world.
If you ever get a chance I think you would enjoy listening to Laura Ingraham between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. weekdays on the radio at 570. She tackles a lot of these issues. My other favorite is Michael Medved, a conservative Jew who broadcasts out of Seattle.
Whether George Bush is a Christian, sincere, etc, and in how many shades of the blackness of evil Saddam may be painted are beside the point. The issue is the wisdom of pre-emptive war undertaken on a pretext of faulty intelligence whose findings were cherry-picked to suit a predispostion to attack Iraq well before 9/11.
Before embracing the piety about the US invasion of Iraq serving to “liberate” oppressed people from a terrible dictator, consider the generations during which the US government has supported just such dictators; the Central American “civil wars” in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala etc. in the 1980s, come readily to mind.
The administration’s rationale de jour for the war, the mounting casualties, the growing expense, the transformation of Iraq into a major (if not the chief) recruiting ground for “terrorists”, the toll on civil liberties in the US, and more bode to aggravate and enlarge the terror of 9/11 rather than quell or even mitigate it.
The measure of accountability of the administration for its malfeasance and misfeasance is appalling. Compare the dogged pursuit of Clinton who was finally nailed for personal immorality by the House of Represenatives and the indifference of a similarly composed Congress to hold the administration accountable for the continuing and abiding public consequences of ill-considered, unwise policies.
Well said, Robin! Particularly loved the phrase “rationale du jour” for the war…isn’t that the truth?
Thanks for stopping by my blog!