The War

Most of the time when people discuss the war in Iraq they state the reasons for going to war were the weapons of mass destruction...yada yada yada. What you don't hear very often is that leading up to those specific reasons was one really big reason, September 11th, 2001. The United States was attacked and Americans finally felt threatened. I say finally because September 11th wasn't the first act of terrorism that targeted Americans, it was just the last straw of many attacks. Through President Bush's actions, the United States made a public statement to the world that we would no longer live in fear and that we would not ask for permission to protect ourselves.

So even though Iraq may not have had obvious direct ties to September 11, there was credible evidence that Iraq was a threat to the world and the United States. There are no news reports of the Military finding any WMD in Iraq, but that doesn't mean they aren't/weren't there. My opinion is that WMD has been found, but not publicized. Regardless, we went to war because we were protecting ourselves from future attacks. Saying the war was wrong is saying that we were wrong to act on credible intelligence with the intent of protecting our nation.

Now many people will cite how the intelligence was false, well to that I say that we fully believed it at the time. How quickly we forget how not acting on intelligence can result in disaster (September 11).

People are forgetting Sept 11 though and want our nation to go back to the way it was before the Tragedy. They complain about the "Terror Alerts" and how they are tired of being "scared" by the Bush administration. Those same people confuse the false sense of security provided by their ignorance before September 11 with safety. "Ignorance is bliss" right?

We need to follow through with our efforts in Iraq and stand behind our right as a nation to defend itself from terrorism. I also believe that we should support other nations in their efforts to fight terrorism in their own nations.