The World of Grandpa Don

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The Iraq War - 2008

These are my thoughts on the situation as I perceive it after five years of conflict.

We are at this time fighting a war in Iraq which has lasted too long. Any war is too long! This war has lasted far longer than anyone anticipated. Our superior military strength over the defined enemy would have indicated a quick victory and we expected to have been greeted as liberators by the people of Iraq. For a brief time this seemed to be the case.

The regime of Saddam Hussein was quickly defeated. However, he and his army melted into the civilian population, some of whom supported him. After a prolonged period of time Hussein was captured, tried and executed along with several of his fellow leaders. guerrilla warfare has continued, fostered mostly by groups opposed to Westernization of the country who are supported by many of the citizens either through religious and cultural reasons or fear of retaliation from the fanatical groups. These terrorists attack Western forces, mostly US at this time, as well as Iraqis who support us, disrupt the country's infrastructure in the attempt to foster general unrest.

There is also in-fighting of groups who want ultimate control of the country. The groups are well supplied with weapons, both as remnants of the original forces and arms being supplied by supporters from outside their borders.

Our assessment of the threat to the West may have been faulty and the initial attack may have been ill advised, particularly considering the situation in which we now find ourselves. Our enemies consider this to be a religious and cultural war and would like to convince other Islamic nations to join with them against us. Our stance is, and must be, that this is a war initiated to prevent aggression and to depose Saddam Hussein, who ruled despotically, oppressing his own people.

Some here in our nation, tired of the war and revolted by the loss of American lives would say that our objectives have been accomplished and we should withdraw. Would that we could and leave a peaceful nation to rebuild itself. Such would not be the case. Armed opposing factions would remain and the people of the area would be left in a worse situation than before we arrived. The terrorist groups would be stronger than ever and buoyed by their victory, pose a greater than ever threat to us.

Our withdrawal would be a surrender to the terrorists and the moral wrong would be that it is those people of Iraq who have supported us that we would be surrendering to the terrorists. I feel that having arrived at this point we have a moral obligation to continue towards a peaceful outcome for ourselves and the Iraqi people.

Our obligation is to leave Iraq in the hands of a stable government which hopefully will be friendly to the Western nations and with a viable infrastructure so that their citizens can peacefully peruse life, liberty and happiness. That has always been our intent but it obviously is not an easy task. Nonetheless it is our moral obligation to peruse it until completed.

Hopefully we as a nation will elect a president and representatives who will share this resolve in the pending election. Hopefully our elected officials and military leaders will find means to resolve the situation, the sooner, the better. Hopefully most of the people of Iraq will come to realize that we can be their friend.

As far as our nation is concerned, this situation can not be a matter of religion for several reasons. In conclusion, I would only refer to the words of Albert Einstein whose quotation I have used in the heading for my thoughts about "Our Nation". (see below)

Don Plefka
05/27/08