Is the War on Iraq Legitimate?

Is the war on Iraq Legitimate?

The war in Iraq is a very touchy subject among most Americans these days. Americans wonder if they have been lied too and taken advantage of by the government, especially the President. This sentiment among Americans has begun to bother me. I feel that it’s time that for me to research this war and determine if the United States should have gotten involved.

Nelson Mandela says that "Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan, who are still suffering from that, who are they now to pretend that they are the policeman of the world? If there is a country which has committed unspeakable atrocities, it is the United States of America...They don't care for human beings." (Celebrities). I completely disagree with Mister Mandela’s quote. If we didn’t police the world who would? I doubt China would lift a finger to topple a terrible dictator and if the US wasn’t in the UN they wouldn’t have the manpower to stop any country from bullying another. I don’t see the logical reason for a smart man like Mr. Mandela, who is against the war, to point at the United States and accuse us of being the most terrible country ever. We stay out of WWII and the world hates us. We end the war early by bombing a nation that attacked us without warning or reason, rigged their own dead with booby traps, and tortured US soldiers for pleasure, and we become the bad guys. The last thing that I disagreed with in the statement was that the US doesn’t care for people. We are the only nation to always send aid to another nation ally or otherwise. Example, North Korean president starves his people; the US sends millions of dollars in food to that nation. We don’t even us it as a bargaining tool or as incentive.

Due to the disagreement of the legitimacy of the war in the US certain situations have occurred that caused anti war groups to shout. A situation took place last Veterans Day in Florida that caused a commotion. A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday's Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental. Parade chairman Ken Conroy, a Korean War veteran, said he ejected the anti-war veterans because they were offensive and because Tallahassee police also wanted them removed. He offered to refund their $10 registration fee and said he was not suppressing the group's free speech rights. (******) I completely agree with what the chairman did. Veteran’s day is meant to honor Veteran’s and the parade was meant to do just that. The parade wasn’t meant for protesting and opinions, it was meant to remember those who served and died.

A major argument in the legitimacy of the war was a stockpile of chemical weapons. Colin Powell remarked "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapon agents. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." (*****). Christopher Scheer stated that “Many argue that since that the stockpile hasn’t been found that we were wrong about invading. Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks -- if they existed -- were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder” (****). I have a theory that may be correct about the latter statement. I think that it is very easy to believe that Iraq has these weapons. Saddam has created and maliciously used chemical warheads on his own people before and he would not allow the UN to inspect his nation. If he didn’t have them or anything else to hide then why not allow the UN a peek. Saddam kicked the inspectors out of his country. Iraq is a large country and with many mountains and ruins. How hard would it be to put a stockpile of bombs in a hole in a mountain or ruins of a old town? Also the problem that nothing was found, not even a drop of the chemicals or the compounds used to create them is a little fishy. I believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

The people in this country that believe that Saddam didn’t have al-Qaeda on speed dial are pigheaded. Saddam went on al Jazeera and offered to pay families restitution if there loved ones became suicide bombers. Mr. Scheer states a good point “Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda