Neverending war

Stacy Billingsley

At a time when 60 per cent of U.S. citizens have voiced the opinion that their country should withdraw from the war in Iraq immediately, U.S. leaders look pretty bad in terms of their supposed democratic, “for the people” system. Approximately 2000 Americans have been killed in three years, directly due to the war, but heck, I’m sure the leaders see that figure as not so bad in comparison to the number of casualties the “enemy” has endured.

“Don’t worry Americans, we are winning the war. I mean, really, just look at these figures — sure, 2000 of our people are in the ground, but the other side can’t even measure how many they’ve lost cause we’re killin’ ‘em too fast!” Nevertheless, if the war were to take place on U.S. soil rather than on Iraqi soil, there would be an immeasurable amount of U.S. casualties too.

Hmmm, I wonder what that would be like; surely there are not nearly enough people living in the U.S., or the rest of the world for that matter, imagining what it must be like to have a war actively developing in your backyard. Just for the record, if this were to happen, I am convinced a large number of the populus would retreat to their basement with a stack of video games and a mammoth supply of pre-recorded CSI episodes.

How, I ask, can this war not eventually be brought to U.S. soil? Its foundation was built with an attack on U.S. soil and the seemingly eventual goal of “the other side” is to defeat the U.S. In that respect, this war cannot be compared to Veitnam. Both wars can be compared in many ways, but the U.S. left Vietnam, or rather, had the choice to leave. This fight will surely continue if the U.S. withdraws, which is exactly why, despite growing defiance from the American people, the war will only end when one side outright wins.

Now, anyone who has played a hefty amount of Risk knows that an outright win does not come easily or quickly. For a withdrawal to occur, the U.S. would have to, and is likely planning to, kill enough of the enemy to ensure that U.S. soil will not be threatened. That being said, this may even be possible in the long term; the fight has begun and new armies can always be bred down the road. But even in the short term, the U.S. is already having recruitment problems for a war that is not even close to completion. The countdown to draft re-instatement appears to have already begun. It seems inevitable in a war where the opposition is larger and does not have the disadvantage of fighting in a foreign land.

American leaders state over and over again that, “we cannot leave, the Iraqi people need us and leaving would condemn them.” Is it really the Iraqi people that U.S. leaders are sacrificing American lives for? Ultimately, it is done because they know that if they were to ‘end’ the war right now by leaving, it would eventually bring the war to U.S. soil.

How long will the war continue? How long does it take to kill an insurgent army of an estimated 200,000? And even if that army were extinguished, would that really ensure U.S. safety in the future?

What if other countries become involved, boosting enemy forces? The U.S. cannot handle that possibility with their all-time low recruitment levels. When it comes down to it, American leaders won’t be stopping this war for a very long time. The American people have found themselves facing a war in which they don’t want to be involved, yet they have no choice but to be.