"Pride!
Honor! Glory! Team Spirit!" screams out the display board for the army
recruitment drive.
"Have you thought about joining the army. Sir?" asks
a beefy army man after noticing me staring at the board.
"I'm a
pacifist" I blurt out before even my mind could think of a reply. Does
this army man realize that all he is, is nothing but a pawn in the high
stakes game that politicians play? Doesn't he realize that his life was
forfeited the moment he enlisted to serve? Doesn't he realize that he's
sending thousands of young men to die in a war that shouldn't have
happened, but did because of one man's ambitions?
If we were to
analyze the information available to us, the reason to invade Iraq is
as clear as glass, Oil. The fact that neither the army nor the CIA was
able to find any Weapons of Mass Destruction does prove this fact. If
so, wouldn't our forces in Egypt be an occupying army rather than
liberators? To argue that the war in Iraq was to free the masses from
Saddam's despotic power rule is another option. If so, shouldn't we
have helped out the countries in the African continent where people die
by the thousands because of violence, disease and famine?
Overthrowing
Saddam was a strategic move by the U.S. government to hide their real
intentions and also gain support of the masses by gaining the moral
high ground. All we have achieved so far in Iraq is that we managed to
upset the fragile peace that Saddam had enforced in Iraq; the death
rate in Iraq has increased since Saddam's fall.
We did gain
control over Iraq's oil fields and we will be able to drive around in
our oil guzzling Jeep's and SUV's at the price of $4.05/ gallon At the
cost of the lives of thousands of innocents, both military and
civilian. Is it worth it? I think not. Power corrupts and people in positions of authority will always end up stepping on the masses. I'm
no anarchist, for I realize governments are a necessary evil; we, human
beings as a race, are not mature enough to govern ourselves. I'm just
concerned about the innocents we sacrifice at the altar of this evil.
As
if sensing another possible candidate the army man turns away from me
and spouts out the same line at another student. With all these
thoughts buzzing in my head, I hastily walk away from the army man's
rude dismissal.
Would it have changed anything if I shared my
views with him? In the end he remains a pawn and I disappear into the
throng of students, hating myself and my inability to fully express
myself to change anything.