Opinions on the Iraq War

The Iraq war, an ongoing battle led by the United States , started on the 20th of March 2003. Among the countries involved are Iraq, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Poland and other nations. Its main reason and purpose, as given by the United States, is to stop the development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as well as to put an end to terrorism.

I personally do not support wars, and in this case, the Iraq war. In general, yes, war produces more instant results and is a more effective method to stop conflicts, disagreements and other unhappiness between countries. War also reflects a country’s military strength, hence its outcome determines a country’s superiority among the others. However, it has with it so many disadvantages that it makes the advantages look miserably insignificant. I find that wars are not necessary as not only does it not solve the main problems, instead it creates even more unhappiness, conflicts or even misunderstandings. In other words, wars destroy peace and make peaceful solutions even harder to reach.

The disadvantages of the Iraq war are numerous, from deaths of mostly innocent people to economic disruption. One main downside is the number of deaths it caused. Since deadly, more powerful and advanced weapons are used today, the death of soldiers during a war is unavoidable. Till now, there had been an estimated of about 3920 deaths of U.S. soldiers alone with another 29395 wounded during the Iraq war. These are two huge figures and is enough to let one realize the extensiveness of the effect of the Iraq war. Furthermore there are also deaths of the innocent locals in Iraq as well as media reporters, who risked their life to give viewers the best first-hand information of the events happening during the war. One example of such death is CBS cameraman, Paul Douglas, and soundman, James Brolen, who were killed in Iraq in 2006. All these just add on to the death toll and the number of people left grieving over their loved-ones.

Apart from deaths, the Iraq war also resulted in the destruction of infrastructure as well as affecting the lives of the locals in Iraq. Take the photo above (from

http://media.commercialappeal.com/mca/content/img/photos/2007/08/23/g24end.jpeg) as an example. It shows a huge ball of flame in front of a group of army tanks. This photo only reflects what happened in a certain small part of the ‘war zone’. Imagine this level of destruction being repeated hundreds of times and one can realize the amount of damage that is left behind as the attacking troops marched past. Attacks from the opposition had destroyed homes, farms, irrigation systems, pipes carrying clean water to homes, power lines, transport infrastructure, sewerage pipes etc. Most of these are important and necessary for the locals and is also vital to the country’s economy. Without these supporting facilities, Iraq is unable to improve and grow towards success. Its resources will also be diverted for the repairing or rebuilding of these damaged facilities, sacrificing all other needs of the nation. In the end, the final effect is still felt by the locals as they continue to live in poverty and hardship.

These disadvantages which I talked about are just a small portion of a larger group. Hence with all these disadvantages, I find that wars are simply not worth it, in terms of the number of lives sacrificed and the amount of money and resources spent ‘cleaning up’ the mess the war had created. Yet despite all these, the United States alone had pumped in about $845 billion into the Iraq war while more than $4.5 billion were from the United Kingdom. Just think about it, did these countries made the right ‘investments’?

Justin aka J.T.