Destruction of Iraq is Not Liberation

Author: Wellington Lyons

Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator who has maintained power by murdering and torturing many thousands of his political opponents. And yet I am still ashamed at what our government is doing in Iraq. As we inflict our unparalleled military might on one of the weakest armies in the world, we, as Americans and as human beings, are in danger of becoming callous and numb to human suffering.
Our media displays images of incinerated Iraqi tanks, burning buildings and shattered cities. Undeniably, in the more fervently pro-war enclaves of America, such images elicit cheers when they flicker on the TV screen. Even here in Middlebury, Vt., some are sure to take pleasure in the suffering of our perceived enemy. Such behavior is not patriotism. It is sadism. Schadenfreude is not an American value. But when we seek to save the country of Iraq by destroying it, many of us are left with the uneasy notion that death means progress.
Some Americans continue to regard our invasion of Iraq as a liberation movement. If indeed this is a liberation, it has resulted in the deaths and suffering of thousands and thousands of Iraqis who have been killed in a tragedy that is Orwellian in name. We are implored by our government to ignore such uncomfortable facts. We are told to forget the fact that many of the Iraqi men our troops are shooting at from the front already have guns being pushed into their backs. When American soldiers return home and realize that they were not shooting at volunteers but at conscripts, many will reconsider the justice of their actions. In bombing a country into submission and in fomenting its civil strife for the purpose of our government choosing a sovereign state's leader, we have become little better than terrorists. We are using violence against a people for political ends. When you drop bombs that level entire blocks, there is no distinction between civilian and combatant. This is not justice. This is not liberation.
All of this bloodshed could have been avoided. A great number of international observers believed that the inspections were working. But when the inspections worked, our demands changed. And now here we are, bombing a people into submission because this is the course of action our president believed would get him the highest approval ratings. Granted it has, but at what cost? Thousands of grieving Iraqi relatives would be able to tell him simply enough, if he ever cared to listen.
Our causus belli is not based in the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. We are waging something entirely new - preventative war. If we are to believe the administration, we are currently destroying Iraq in order to preserve our safety. We are at war because we fear that one day, the government of Iraq might acquire weapons of mass destruction, and that one day, the government of Iraq might provide those weapons to terrorists, who might, one day, use these weapons to attack America. While this renegade philosophy focuses strongly on tactics, it entirely ignores motives. I believe we would all be safer in the long run to focus our energies on examining the roots of terrorism instead of spending so many dollars and lives fighting against a single potential threat.
The Iraqi people have been held hostage by a repressive regime. In seeking to bring that regime to an end, we have killed too many innocent hostages. I don't know about you, but that doesn't make me feel any safer.

Wellington Lyons is a
political science major from North Yarmouth, Maine.