I wrote this for Sociology class in March, 2005.
The Anti-War Movement
Soldiers are mobilizing against the war in Iraq for many reasons. The most important is that as time goes on, more and more soldiers die per month. One veteran, Stewart Nusbaumer, of “Veterans Against The Iraq War” writes that contrary to the claim of the Bush Administration that “the recent elections” are “the beginning of the end, it is clear that Iraq is not a developing democracy. It is an escalating war: from only a war against foreign occupation to one that includes a full-blown civil war. In war power resides not with the ballot but with the gun, and in Iraq the gun is demanding a wider, more violent war. Simple hype about democracy can't change this reality”
[http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1006].
Nusbaumer writes about how the American soldiers are resisting the war. He says “As veterans we have marched against this war, joined non-veterans in protests, lobbied Congress, held a symposium in the nation’s capital, given speeches throughout the country, argued on Internet forums and wrote articles for websites as well as newspapers, all to no effect” [Ibid]. The Bush Administration has not been responding. I feel that these are legitimate points but for different reasons. I feel it is impossible to bring democracy to Muslim countries because it goes against their religion.
I oppose the war as a Rightist. I am not opposed to war, just this one. I think instead of wasting time on a meaningless war, the nuclear reactors in Muslim terrorist countries such as Iran should be bombed from the air rather than pointless occupation of a Muslim country to bring “democracy”. Doing so would prevent nuclear weapons from reaching the hands of terrorist organizations that would try to set off an atomic bomb in a major American city. Many anti-war activists call Bush and his officials “Neo-Cons”. I agree with this title because while I may agree with him on moral issues, I feel he is a pseudo-Conservative when it comes to diplomacy. I feel that “Neo-Cons” have an agenda of being pro-Arab and Muslim and that is why Bush treats the war in a “politically correct” way in saying that there are good Arabs that want a free Iraq. I believe that a true Conservative would only have American interests at heart without worrying about “political correctness”. After all, it was American foreign policy that originally armed Osama Bin-Laden.
I don’t believe a draft should be necessary because it would be better for the United States to maintain an isolationist foreign policy. It would be better to only fight wars for self-defense and not get involved in meaningless conflicts or interfere with the rights of sovereign friendly nations.
Topic: The Anti-War Movement (Read 1182 times)