Misconceptions

In my philosophy class tonight, conversation turned political. And any political conversation these days naturally goes into a discussion about Iraq. One classmate, a 40-something Air Force reservist, spoke for a couple of minutes about how the media never tells us the positive things happening in Iraq; we only hear about the negatives.

Seeing that he has fought for this country and been to Iraq, he's seen a lot more than me. I didn't respond to his comments because I felt rather daunted given his social standing compared to mine, that being a 20-something smart ass who has never signed up for military service or been out of the country except to Canada. But some points he brought up to defend his argument didn't sit well with me. Despite his age and military experience, I think the misconceptions about Iraq are coming from him and not me.

I'll point out the one example that sticks out most clearly in my mind. He said that we hear about fighting that's happening in, for example, this square mile or that square mile. We don't hear about the good things happening to Iraqis outside of these, as he insinuated, small comabt zones. He insisted that 80% of the Iraqi population were leading better lives than they were under the reign of Saddam Hussein, but our media is only focusing on the small combat zones.

Honestly, with all due respect to my classmate, I think this argument is ridiculous. It sounds like something our government would have told us on the onset of the Tet Offensive in 1968. I can imagine the words of defense: "Sure, we have fierce fighting in this square mile or two of Hue, and more fierce fighting in the relatively small area of Khe Sanh, but the rest of the country is doing fine! Much better then they would be under the rule of Ho Chi Minh, right? That fighting means nothing when compared to the positive aspects this war has brought for the people of South Vietnam."

I know the media, and smart ass punks like me, have been accused of focusing on the negative aspects of the Iraq War, but if this is supposed to be a defense for the positive aspects, then maybe the media and people like myself should be given credit for being right. I'm afraid that I have observe more negative results of Bush's aggression in Iraq than positives. I know I'm a biased source for this information, but I honestly try to read articles from all different points of view. If one wants to look at what blogs and news sources I try to read on my news aggregator, go right ahead. From news services in America, Asia, UK, MidEast, and Australia; to left wing, right wing, and Iraqi blogs; I try to keep up with as much information as possible in Iraq. I don't think negative opinions about Iraq can simply be chalked up to what we hear in the media and how nobody talks about the positive things happen. From what I gather, there truly aren't many positive things that have happened because of our war. Worse yet, we have no clue how things will turn out. Bush insists that we must hand over power to the Iraqis on June 30th, but is he even thinking about the consequences of such a decision and how it could help lead to civil war in the country? We can't stabilize an Iraqi police force, yesterdays bombings of police stations in Basra proves that. As for the Iraqis we've chosen to be in power, the ones we want to hand over power to the country to, can they be trusted? NPR's Marketplace has some mind blowing reports on where $22 billion of our tax dollars earmarked for the reconstruction of Iraq has fallen prey to corruption at all levels, from street peddlers, to Iraq's CPA, and to corporations like Halliburton.

My classmate, as you've probably already guessed, did not mention any of this. And even though I have trouble speaking up in public (believe it or not, and I once delivered a political speech to an audience of 800 people, so it's not like I haven't tried), I wish I had tonight. The war in Iraq is more than a series of square mile battle zones with prospreity for the rest of the country. It's a real problem, and as each day passes, it's seems more and more likely that Iraq can be summed up with one word: FUBAR.