My War In Iraq

I strongly feel that the War in Iraq is inherently wrong at so many different levels; both for the Iraqi people collectively and indeed the people who live under the governments of the Coalition Forces.
As a self professed civilised Western democracy, the message we are sending to the Arab world must surely be questioned. How can the Iraqi population take the leap of faith to trust us, when we have ignored the United Nations Charter in order to start this war?
Is it really a surprise that we - the west - are hated amongst the ordinary people of Arabic countries and Iraq? Especially when the only things we have done are invade them (twice) and impose crippling sanctions upon their people in-between.
The word sanction is banded around as if it were a necessary instrument in the controlling of Saddam Hussein. These are sanctions which have crippled the economy of Iraq and all this to the detriment of the Iraqi people, and the benefit of no one. Perhaps I should revise the latter? Who really does benefit? Halliburton certainly has.
Attempting to stop "terror" through further killing of innocent civilians is simply fuelling real terrorism in years to come. Naturally, revenge is a characteristic present in all Humans and unfortunately for us, not just the people of the west.
We are destined to repeat history if we do not learn from it. Let’s take the Weimar Republic of Germany as an example. People neither desired democracy before its implementation, nor enjoyed it afterwards. This simply lead to an unstable government, as there were so many different parties vying for the Reichstag (Similarities can be drawn in Iraq where there are over 20 different parties in Iraq today), a people who didn’t know who to vote for or how the system worked and a government which didn’t know how to govern successfully. This made weak government and therefore an oppressed people, weak policies forced people towards extreme measures in order to receive a rest bite from starvation, prejudice and death (Just like we are seeing now in Iraq). This is a lesson we must learn; in fact it is simply absurd to ignore these similarities.
With direct regard to the justification of war in Iraq, Saddam has never had any WMD’s and we know this as a fact now. The nerve gas Saddam used against the Kurds was not a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and has been in circulation since WW1 when no WMD were even in existence. People who say that this is justification is enough for war are playing with words in an attempt to justify an unjust war. Moreover, the weapons he did use were obtained from the USA in 1983. Here is an analogy which can be applied to this situation:
If a grown man leaves a child or a madman with a pistol and then leaves, and later it is found that the child or madman had killed somebody or a whole bunch of people, who is really responsible for the deaths of those people?
For the last 12 years Saddam has had UN inspectors in his country. Saddam had co-operated with all that the UN asked of him. To suggest that he's just ‘hid the WMDs’ is insane. Ask David K. head inspector!! Further, now he is gone, if they did exist, where are they? I often ask whether this was or is a Just War, but why not ask the opinion of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan instead? He declared, "The US-led war was inconsistent with the United Nations Charter. It was illegal."
Secondly, It's clearly not about liberating the Iraqi People, as a primary objective at least; it’s certainly about the control of her oil resources. American contactors own all the rights to the oil, it is also interesting that the companies who benefit from the war are the companies with connections to the Bush Administration.
Thirdly, Saddam has no connections with Osama Bin Laden, and never has. I beg for any evidence to be presented to show the contrary.
Finally, I don't think that Saddam Hussein was a good ruler nor did he have any justification for his actions against the Kurds, or his own people. However why are we overlooking that it was the USA that provided those weapons and supported Iraq in the first gulf war against Iran? The governments of the Coalition are hypocritical on such a broad scale it is disgusting. To call Saddam a “moderate” during the 1980s and overlooking genocide to supply him weapons, then to call the very same person an “evil dictator” during the 90s and beginning of this new millennium is clearly an uncomfortable ethical position to be in. Yet, we are in this position and it is their blood on our hands. We have the luxury to be living under a system, which is a true democracy, a system that our ancestors desired for themselves and which they fought and died for in order to secure a true democracy, for their children and their children’s children. Responsibility is now in our hands, so now is the time to go and use your vote. Please vote wisely.
If you would like to see my interpretation of Iraqi freedom, please visit www.appk04.dsl.pipex.com/sbz/iraqi_freedom.wmv for a short video.

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man; brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be patriot." Mark Twain