Honzo September 26th, 2005

For several overlapping reasons, I support that Iraqi War. New information changes the way one looks at a conflict¹, but I believe the reasons hold, never-the-less. Dave notes the anti-war protests² at the capital this weekend and holds them in high regard³. Others do support the war effort⁴. Smiles was frustrated by the anti-protestors and what they had to say in addition to being against the war⁵.

I want to take a second and look at the anti-war position. I will liken the situation to a surgery:

Say
you don’t think a person should have surgery. It will kill a lot of
harmless and innocent cells, all of them of equal worth and are
intrinsically very valuable. You don’t even think the patient will be
better off after the surgery. Now, the surgeon goes ahead and does the
surgery, much to your chagrin.

Now, would you want the surgeon to stop in the middle of the surgery
and walk away, because you think the surgery is a bad idea? Or, would
you rather the person finish the job and sow the patient back up, apply
antibiotics, ect…?

I think that if the Anti-War crowd really sticks to the reasons it
is anti-war, they would support finishing the conflict, rather than
abandoning the situation. Abandoning the conflict would allow the
country to spiral into a very bloody civil war, the outcome of which
would very likely result in a government similar in nature to Saddam’s.

Would finishing the conflict not lead to fewer lives lost,
especially for the hopeful Iraqis? It is the Iraqi populace that would
suffer the most from a complete withdraw. When considering this
problem, we need to factor their lives into account. We must have
compassion for them. They are worth fighting for. Imagine if we
finished and left Iraq with a strong, stable democracy and defeated the
Islamic Terrorists there? That would be the best outcome. Shouldn’t we
“root” for the best outcome? After all, this is no longer of question
of “no war”. The war is. There is no escaping it. What we must do is
decide where to go from here.

Before anyone accuses me of committing a false dilemma⁶, one needs to state the other options besides ¹⁾ finishing the fight, or ²⁾
abandoning Iraq. The only other option that I know of is a better, more
aggressive war, or to use my analogy, hurrying up the surgery. Send
more troops in, crack, crack, crack down, and do the job right. That is
what I would like to see done. However, I will admit that there might
be another possibility besides the three, (really two, as fighting and
better fighting and really just varying degrees of the same thing.)

Just a few thoughts. Anyone want to add some more?

Update: I moved the anti-war-anti-protest pic to another post because I want this to be as respectful as possible. I really want to be serious and discuss this.

Update 2 Dave responds to this post at the Mindful Mission: Withdrawal vs. Staying the course. I have since fixed the spelling and grammar errors.

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