Why The United States Should Not Have Gone To War

The Bush administration's National Security Strategy was a product of America’s belief in American interventionism and exceptionalism, and marked a dramatic shift in the United State's foreign policy. In addition, it showcased the Bush administration’s push to find answers to 9/11. In the few years after the tragedy, the US would seek to strike a blow in the war on terror in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist regime had supposed ties to terror groups such as Al-Qaeda. The nation quickly moved to war, and invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003. However, even though the war was quickly declared over, the continued deaths of American troops in Iraq gave rise to powerful protests. Artist Joe Wezoreck’s collage War President, critiques the continued stay of American troops in Iraq. Once Iraqi accounts of the war, such as Wendell Steveanson’s collection of stories “Dispatches from Iraq” surfaced, the American public truly began to question the real purpose behind the Iraq war. These sources initiated the changing perception of the American identity as a bastion of freedom and democracy as a result of the Iraq war. In the end, the Iraq war ultimately failed to provide answers to a post 9/11 nation, and instead revealed the flaws of interventionism and muddled American foreign policy to the disillusioned American

Invading Iraq was—and remains—a highly debated and controversial decision within both world politics and the academic disciplines of politics and international relations. With a growing number of deaths, rising tensions in the Middle East, and a failure to find any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the voices condemning the Bush administration have been increasing ever since the decision to go to war was announced. While many scholars have traditionally argued against the war, this paper will argue that the Iraq War can be justified.

The documentary film, Hearts and Minds, by Peter Davis; illustrates the brutal nature and different perspectives of the people involved in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War is considered as one of the longest and horrific wars in American history. American soldiers involved in the War have diverse reactions of their experiences and encounters during the war. The Vietnamese believed that, “Americans were evil and the Vietnamese simply were fighting merely defensively”. These factors will demonstrate how the film, Hearts and Minds, helped encourage reform during and after the War.

In 2003, President George Walker Bush and his administration sent the United States military to war in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s ruler and dictator, who murdered over 600,000 innocent people, and “...used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from their villages in northern Iraq…” (Rosenberg 2). According to the Department of Defense’s website, the war removed Saddam Hussein from power, ending an era when “Iraqis had fewer rights than when its representatives signed the Human Rights Declaration in 1948” (1). American blood, money, and honor was spent in what was allegedly a personal war and perhaps a fight to gain oil and natural resources, but only history may reveal the truth. Although the Iraq War removed tyrant Saddam Hussein from power, the failures of the war dwarf the successes.

Imagine the world if the United States didn’t enter the second World War.  The United States was able to control the Germans, so they weren’t able to take over all of Europe; a whole continent to themselves.  The United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7th, 1944, because the United States cut off oil shipments to Japan so they would come to bargain.  Instead of bargaining, the Japanese came to Pearl Harbor and proved that it was a mistake to cut off the oil supply.  Another reason the United States joined the war was the Germans were sinking United States’ ships while taking supplies to England.  They were even using unrestricted submarine warfare even though they promised not to do so in years prior.

On September 11th 2001, the United States was hit with a devastating blow when four commercial airplanes were hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorist who deliberately crashed two of the planes into the World Trade Center complex, and a third plane into the Pentagon. The fourth plane, headed for Washington D.C., instead crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost on this egregious day. In response, President George W. Bush waged the controversial “Global War on Terrorism” which turned out to be a self-inflicted wound for America, bleeding still today. Bush’s highly-criticized decision was inconsistent with the strategic principles of war.

The invasion and the war in Iraq remains a continuous topic of divisiveness and sensitivity in today’s America. One of the negative evaluation of the war is attributed to the false impression of the length of the war which lasted seven years, not six months as presumed in 2003. As the invasion initiated, the ideologies of American government then failed to perceive the large number of troops required, casualties and the financial toll in the interest of the preventive war doctrine. However, when weighing the failures of this war, there are successes brought home that relate mostly to the lessons the American military and the government learned with the use of counterinsurgency tactics after “winning the hearts and minds” of Iraqis (Young). Nevertheless, with evaluation through levels of analysis, the accomplished agenda of ending Saddam Hussein’s regime justifies success and failure, mutually.

United States policy towards the Iran-Iraq war was interesting to say the least. While the United States claimed to be a neutral party, they supported Iraq for the majority of the war, supported Iran for a brief period, then went back to only supporting Iraq. Both sides committed numerous atrocities and war crimes, and for the most part received little to no American condemnation. Through this essay, I will explore the reasons for the US involvement, and their responses to a number of war crimes, particularly Iraq’s use of chemical weapons throughout the war.

In the weeks immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the nation watched anxiously as the Bush Administration declared war on terror. Following the invasion of Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible for this horrific incident, the U.S. swiftly changed its priority to invading Iraq and overthrowing its government by capturing its president, Saddam Hussein. In this mission, the U.S. scrambled to find a connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qa’ida. Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, many scholars have focused on the effects of the Iraq War, speculating on the Bush Administration’s motives for the decision. While some within scholarly circles have attributed the invasion

Since the war on Iraq began on March 20, 2003, at least 1,402 coalition troops have died and 9,326 U.S. troops have been wounded in action. This is no small number and the count grows daily. One would hope, then, that these men and women were sent to war with just cause and as a last resort. However, as the cloud of apprehension and rhetoric surrounding the war has begun to settle, it has become clear that the Bush administration relied on deeply flawed analyses to make its case for war to the United Nations and to the American people, rushing this country, and its soldiers, into war. This is not to say that this war was waged against a blameless regime or that our soldiers have died

First and foremost is that a response was without a doubt warranted, America had to send a clear warning to those responsible that justice would catch up to them. But the measures the government took resulted in more damage to the American people than the satisfaction that should have arose from carrying out the required justice. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in particular are two critical mistakes that should have been prevented. Instead of fully invading these countries, we could have used all those intelligence agencies created after the attacks to go directly after the masterminds behind the attacks. The case for invading is further weakened by the fact that almost a decade later, and those extremists namely the Taliban and Al Qaeda still exist, and in them has arisen an even deeper evil in Isis. Another consequence resulting from the invasion is a huge loss of lives. During the attacks, almost three thousand people lost their lives, if those were not enough precious lives to lose, a decade after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, America has lost an unbelievable six thousand, eight hundred and forty five brave men and women and over nine hundred thousand to injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan (Goodman). In retaliation to the 2001 attacks, some Americans have lost their loved ones because of a quick decision made by the government

Injustice for all appears to be the recent motto of the American justice system in the previous years. This system, increasingly known, infamously, for the wrongful incarcerations of many innocent citizens is in large part due to prejudice and a lack of due diligence by society 's finest, the police. Police departments’ focus on making the collar often leads to the use of various forms of torture such as mental, emotional, and even physical coercion. Errors of fact fail to be discovered, and wrongful convictions happen to hundreds of innocent citizens such as William Dillon, who had served 27 years for a crime he did not commit. William Dillon is among those innocent citizens that the American justice system has failed. The dawn of August 17, 1981 a man by the name of James Dvorak was found at Canova Beach beaten to death. The police department was only able to find one article of evidence, a witness, a perjured testimony, and fabricated evidence that pointed towards Dillon. From these William Dillon was convicted due to a bloody yellow shirt found at the crime scene, a half blind man, a false testimony from a past lover and phony evidence fabricated by the police and their consultants.

The United States has been at war since its creation in 1776. Notably, one of the most crucial wars was the War on Terror. Beginning in March of 2003, this war initially served the purpose of getting rid of the country 's leader Saddam Hussein to prevent his use of suspected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Hussein was best-known as a Middle Eastern ruler with a violent regime. He governed Iraq from 1979 until his capture in 2003when President Bush presumed he was harboring chemical weapons such as synthetic warheads, shells, or aviation bombs. While politics justified invading Iraq, the conflict between the U.S. and Iraq began long before the war. In the post-election leading up to the war, political officials such as George Bush attested repeatedly that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a danger to the U.S. and other targets. Bush sold the war to Americans by attesting these cases of threat to Americans openly with supreme certainty. The United States of America should not have invaded Iraq as it allowed the establishment of government power and democracy without evidence under prior resolutions, increased violence, and forced American citizens to inquire significant debt including the injuries and hardships sustained by U.S. soldiers.

America is under attack, not from an enemy in a faraway land, but here at home, by our own government. In the current year 2010, almost 7 years after "shock and awe" campaign that officially started the war in Iraq, the U.S. government fails to recognize that our efforts in the Middle East have plateaued, and it is time to bring our troops home. The surge campaigns in recent years were felt by many, to be an unofficial recognition that the war is not going well, and several top generals have had high hopes for this military strategy, but compelling evidence concludes this was a short-lived success. No one can deny the financial toll the Iraq war has had on America, for America is in the middle of one of the worst economic crisis in recent

     The final and most important reason for the United States not to wage war against Iraq is that it will cause many war crimes. Wars always involve taking the lives of innocent people, and many other injustices that can be illustrated if we look to wars fought in the past. First of all, innocent civilians will be killed. The loss of every innocent life is an injustice and a tragedy. Secondly, after the Persian Gulf War fought from 1990-1991, the troops who fought in the war and the people of Iraq developed increased incidences of cancer and birth defects to their newborn children. This was later found to be due to the radioactivity of the depleted uranium used in the weaponry to fight the war. The current war against Iraq employs the same weaponry made of the depleted uranium, and will only cause more generations of people with cancer and birth