What is the reasoning behind going to war? Is it to kill? Is it to take something of value? Or is it just because we like violence? Well, the reasoning of going to war is to better their way of life and/or protect a way of life.Now doesn’t that sound familiar?
In America’s Revolutionary war we wanted to protect our newly found independence, in World War 2 after the events of Pearl Harbor we wanted to protect our way of life from the Axis of Evil, and in the Cold War we wanted to protect our ways from communism. Fast forward to September 11, 2001 everyone wanted to protect their way of life from Terrorism. Ten years from then and now I wonder; what are we trying to protect?
We’ve been at war for 10 years now and we’ve started out with such good intentions. We wanted to take down the people who we’re responsible for 9/11.
The purpose was to destroy to Al-Qaeda for bombing the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and their intent to blow up the White House (which thankfully the passengers were heroic enough to take down that plane in Shanksburg, PA.)
Well we’ve made progress on this front, Osama bin Laden is dead. That sent a message to all Al-Qaeda plus there grip is slowly deteriorating in the Middle East. We’ve seen it all over the news: Libya, Egypt, Syria, all kinds of people in different places are fighting for democracy run by the people, for the people. We’ve been successful in protecting our way of life and spreading it around to other people as well; but at what cost?
Over the course of 10 years at least 5,554 American troops have already died on the fields while 35,302 were seriously injured. On the other side, 30,000 Iraqi troops died while 90,000 were seriously injured. But the worst part about the list is the fact that civilian casualties out number both. 864,531 civilians are reported dead while 1,556,156 are seriously injured. Why is this happening?
More civilians are dying and the United States isn’t there protecting them. On a lesser note to the bloodshed issue, the money being spent has grown into a giant mass of dollars disappearing out of sight. As of press time, the United States Government has spent over one trillion two hundred fifty-seven billion dollars on the war. This is money the U.S. will never get back; money we could have used here in the states, bettering our education, making a better healthcare system, and making jobs for our nation. Now with all the money we spend on war you would think that we would be able to take care of our Veterans. It is one of the many groups of people that suffer the most in the war (along with many native civilians’ on the war grounds), yet Veterans have a 11.5% employment rate, as well as suicide rate of 3 times higher than the general population, and approximately 150,000 are homeless.
Now what does that say about us as a country; plenty of money is spent on war yet we can’t even take care of the people that deal with the physical, metal, psychological pains of defending this country. It’s a shame and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
This war has brought more losses then gains so it’s about time for us to pack our bags and come home. How can we fix others countries problems when we haven’t fixed our own home problems?
