Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The War on Terror

Saddam Hussein is a bad man. I'm glad he is out of power. There was a time shortly after his fall that the Iraqis were happy with our presence, but that time has passed. The Iraqis now see a new evil, or terror if you will, that has been ushered in by our enduring presence in the region. Much of the violence that continues killing Iraqis and U.S. soldiers and workers exists because the U.S.A. is now viewed, because of it's prolonged existence, as the nation that invaded Iraq, not liberated it. It's not an easy situation that this country finds itself in. If it was a no-brainer, I have faith that the problem would have been resolved by now, but I would like to see the U.S. leave Iraq. The country has there own long-standing problems of Islamic sects conflicting with one another. Our presence is now compounding those problems, and they have a better chance of residing with our departure.

I would not say President Bush is a war monger, but he and the USA have overstayed their "welcome", although labeled as we are, the invading nation, we can't have a welcome and it is becoming harder and harder to remember the time when a welcome was ever a possibility. There will always be those that oppose the USA and its policies. Staying in one nation long enough isn't going to change that.

The nation's focus for the last month has been on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Rita, but in the time between those hurricanes, 40 more US Soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq. I don't want to be comfortably writing on this blog a year from now while American men and women my age, and people of Iraqi descent, are being killed thousands of miles away in a war that lost its welcome a long time ago.

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