By Henry
In Baghdad, a giant US embassy is being built. It will be the biggest embassy in the World. Many people are wondering why we are taking the trouble to build this massive embassy complex in a country like Iraq. My theory is that, when Iraq becomes an independent country, the United States will use the embassy as a headquarters for the control of the Iraqi government. The democracy in Iraq is bound to fail once or maybe more, since democracy is an experiment, and we will need that much man power in Iraq to keep the country from chaos. Do not think of it as us trying to control Iraq forever; instead, think of it as insurance in case the government is failing. This is going to be necessary for democracy to live on in Iraq.
By Henry
Remember the Rwandan genocide? It was such a terrible time in history, but it will just repeat if we are not careful. The genocide in Rwanda was caused by the Dutch suddenly leaving the country after years of occupation and control of the government. Rival tribes then started to try to take power from one another, and mass killing rose up. This is almost exactly what will happen if we leave Iraq. It will be the same story. The Sunnis and the Shiites will battle for power without any outside force intervening. Each sect will massacre eachother and it will leave the country in shambles. We need to stay in Iraq until outside terrorist threats are quelled, and the Iraquis are taught how to run a democracy on their own. That is the only way for Iraq to become a stable country.
Another possible outcome of abandoning the occupation of Iraq could be an outside force replacing us as the occupiers. That outside force could be Iran or Al Qaeda. Imagine what the whole world would be like with an even stronger Iran or a whole country controlled by the most dangerous terrorist group. The world would not be a very safe place anywhere. The 4,000 Americans lost in Iraq pales in comparison to the possible deaths if we pull out of Iraq. We do not want to be the country responsible for this.
By Henry
Across the world, tens of millions activists have marched on the streets searching for peace. Their mission is complete peace in the World. In America, protesters march to pull the troops out of Iraq. They have the idea that if we offer the radical Moslems peace, they will return it. Let me remind you, the radical Moslems are not searching for peace, but for complete annihilation of all non-Islamic people. This is not an enemy that we can broker deals with; it is the complete opposite, the only way this war can be stopped is with war. As silly as that may sound, it is true. The radical Islamic groups wish to destroy us, you can't make peace with people like that.
Its like that saying,"Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy." This hate can only be suppressed, and that has to be done by war. I am not a big believer in the idea that you can have peace when your enemy wants nothing but war.
It is not like in the 70's, when protesters stopped riot police with flowers, with Osama Bin Laden, we will be trading flowers for a bullet to the face.
By Henry
Every time somebody talks out against the war in Iraq, you hear them say that "We are losing this war." Any one that says that doesn't know what losing a war truly means. Four thousand deaths isn't that grave. We sustained as much deaths as that in a single day in WWII. When a country loses a war, they have no options other than defeat.
The closest thing America has had to defeat is Vietnam, and we left that country on our own accord.
America is one of the only countries that has the luxury of not knowing what it feels like to lose a war. That is what makes America different from all the rest.
By Henry
The Democratic Primaries continue to ramble on. This is the longest primary election since Carter was running. The longer they continue, the harder it will be for either Obama or Clinton to beat McCain. After the low approval rating of President Bush, it seemed like there was going to be no way a Democrat would not hold office. But of course, the Democrats splintered, and hope has almost been lost. Supporters of both Obama and Hillary said that they would vote for McCain if the rival Democrat got nominated. This sort of split in the party is just handing the election to the Republicans, which is a good thing in this transitional period. A poll is from gallup.com stated that 28% of Hillary supporters would vote for McCain over Obama, and 18% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton. The Democrat party sure isn't held together tightly like the Republican party.
By Henry
Three days ago, the U.S. Social Security Administration released its annual report of the 1000 most popular baby names. It is interesting to know what the most common name for 2007 newborns was, but is this what they should be spending their time on? Considering the Administration is in pretty deep trouble with handling social security funds, I don't think they should be spending time and taxes on rating names for newborns. The social security fund is not going to be working for future generations, so they need to be spending all their time on helping to improve it. There are more pressing needs in America right now.
By Henry
President Bush just was denied increased oil production by the Saudis, and the use of gasoline as fuel is reaching its dying days. It is apparent that we need to find an alternate source of fuel. Gas causes too much pollution and is going to run out in the next decade or so if we don't do anything about this. Everyone is trying to find the fuel that will replace gasoline. Will it be hydrogen, bio-diesel, electricity, solar, veggie-diesel, or even other types? I do not think that one fuel will be the answer. Hydrogen will be the most widely used fuel source, since it is so easy and cheap to make and only releases water into the environment. We need to use multiple fuel sources, though, so we don't exhaust one source like we did with oil. We need to use not only hydrogen, but also other types of fuel, too. If we don't, we will follow the same path with new fuel that we took with oil, and that could lead to shortages in other things, like water for the hydrogen, and that could prove fatal. We really have a chance to change our ways, and we need to proceed carefully and not rush into one answer, or we could be in trouble.
By Henry
I do not think that going into Iraq was a huge mistake. I do not think it has been handled perfectly, but the idea of liberating Iraq was a good idea. I just want to address the reasons why I think this.
First of all, Iraq was under the rule of an evil tyrannical leader, who killed thousands of his own citizens. He tested chemical weapons on Kurds living in his country, killing thousands. A war freeing the oppressed from the oppressor is the type of war that is completely justified. When America revolted against the British, the innocent was freed from the control of the guilty, and the people of Iraq were under even worse conditions. This war was justified.
America and our allies were aware that Iraq was planning on attacking Iran again. Iraq, and Arabian country, was going to attack Iran, a Persian country. The war between the Arabians and the Persians has lasted thousands of years, and was bound to flare up soon. If Iran was attacked, their production of oil would be severely hurt. Without Iran, one of the World's largest producers of oil, the worlds economy would be set off balance severely. We needed to interfere with Iraq's plans of attacking Iran. If we hadn't attacked, the economy would have been worse than it is now.
Contrary to popular belief, Iraq was hosting terrorist training camps. The Weekly Standard stated, "THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials." Terrorism is the greatest threat to the well being of the World, and it would be dangerous to not act.
These are a few reasons why I believe the Invasion of Iraq was a logical and justified military action. I am open to other opinions people have about the invasion of Iraq, though. I'm willing to listen to other peoples opinions, and if you can convince me, I might just change my own view.
