Reasons
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group
A reader of this blog has written to demand that I supply the good reasons why our country invaded Iraq since I'm so sure of them. (Her message is available through the comments link of a few days ago.)

Well, we're a military superpower, for one thing; if we didn't project our power abroad in those areas of the world that hate and resist us, pretty soon, we'd be perceived as weak. The United States, like all great cultures and empires, is obligated to itself and the world to wield its power against tyrants and terrorists. If we withdraw from this obligation and become the isolationists that the Democrats and liberals wish us to be, we will squander our greatness and lose the ability to right the wrongs of the world. Look at your history, Heather: Uncle Sam has saved the world many times now (i.e., by winning both World Wars and outlasting the Communists in the Cold War). We are depended on in ways no other country knows. We prop up the United Nations so that little tin-pot dictatorships and our chastened former/erstwhile allies can have a forum to tell us what sorry bastards we are. But what happens when the UN repeatedly finds that a country like Iraq is in violation of all these resolutions, but does nothing? If there's no consequences for non-compliance, then nobody is going to care. They're just like errors in baseball: looks bad on paper, but where's the punishment? Without our force or the threat of our force, Iraq would never have complied.

Okay, so I've given you a few good reasons. Kicking the bad guys' asses is what the good guys do. Putting the bite in the bark of the paper police is the only way to preserve the legitimacy of world conference. If you don't use it, you lose it. The perception of weakness is weakness. What else do you want, Heather? Now that we are in Iraq, the people there have a chance at self-government and basic civil liberties/human rights. They didn't have that before. Am I happy about our losing soldiers nearly every day there to some sort of violence? No. It makes me anxious and sad. But our soldiers are buying an entire culture the time and space to be re-born and to have what we have, which is liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Think of it! The New World is helping Mesopotamia find its dignity and self-worth again. That's pretty great.

Plus, we are in a position to apply pressure on the rest of the Middle East to find a way to lasting peace. Those governments need to be forced into it because, otherwise, they will keep on oppressing their people and retarding their progress. Iran sees what we have done in Iraq and knows that they can be done with tyranny, too. Our invasion also is making things possible in Israel that were impossible a year ago. There may be a chance at a solution there, as well. All of this has to do with geopolitical influence. I believe we have a moral obligation to keep Israel Jewish. Don't you? I believe we have an economic obligation to our own society to make sure no one can cut off our oil supplies and wreck our economy. Doesn't that make sense?

When you doubt and deny the wisdom of our decision to invade Iraq, you are defending the right of tyrants like Saddam and his regime to murder and oppress his people. You are saying that America has no obligation to stand up and fight for what is right. You are rolling over and taking it when you cast aspersions upon our political and ideological superiority. Of course we are superior to those rotten Muslim dictatorships and monrachies! How can you find yourself in the position of contradicting that truth?