Imagine for a moment that you had to explain our current war in Iraq to someone from another planet.
Alien: Why did you go to war with this country called Iraq?
Us: Well, we went to war with Iraq because our country was brutally attacked a few years ago and almost 3,000 people were killed.
Alien: Oh, so Iraq was the country that attacked you?
Us: No, Iraq didn’t attack us. We were attacked by a terrorist group of Islamic extremists.
Alien: So apparently these terrorists must have come from Iraq or had been trained in Iraq before they attacked you?
Us: No, none of them came from Iraq. Most of them came from a country called Saudi Arabia.
Alien: Did you go to war with Saudi Arabia?
Us: Of course not. They sell us oil so they’re one of our closest friends in that part of the world.
Alien: Well then Iraq must have given aid and comfort to these terrorists and supported their cause and that’s why you went to war with them.
Us: No, the dictator of Iraq killed or threw out most of the Islamic extremists because he considered them a threat to his regime.
Alien: But Iraq must have had some involvement with the attack on your country?
Us: No. After we went to war, our president admitted that Iraq had no involvement whatsoever in the attack on our country.
Alien: Tell me, was this attack on your country a sudden surprise attack or did you know this terrorist group was targeting you?
Us: Oh, it was a sneak attack, a complete surprise. Except for the briefing the president received a month before the attack that said the terrorist group, al Qaeda, was determined to attack America and it mentioned New York City, the World Trade Center and Washington DC as likely targets. The CIA director said the system was “blinking red” with warnings about impending terrorist attacks.
Alien: So your president no doubt sprang into action to protect the country from this looming terrorist threat?
Us: Well, um, he immediately took a month-long vacation playing golf, fly fishing, and clearing brush on his ranch in Texas.
Alien: So your president was told of the impending attack but his only response was to take a long vacation 1500 miles from where he was told the attack was probably going to happen? What did he do when the attack actually occurred?
Us: He was reading with a group of school children in Florida when one of his aids told him the country was under attack.
Alien: And then he immediately sprang into action to defend the country from the attackers, right?
Us: Not exactly. After he was told the country was under attack, he sat there reading a children’s book for several more minutes with the school children while the attacks were still under way.
Alien: So your leaders were slow to respond to the attacks on your country and then they chose to go to war with a country that didn’t attack you?
Us: Well yes but there’s more to it than that. We know the names of the leaders of the terrorist group that attacked us and we have killed or captured some of them in another country called Afghanistan. Their leaders are still hiding in Afghanistan. Our war in Iraq is part of a larger war on terrorism.
Alien: OK, that makes a little more sense. So you’ve put most of your resources into catching these known terrorists in Afghanistan and you chased them into Iraq?
Us: Well not exactly. We actually have a very small number of forces hunting for the terrorists in Afghanistan compared to the number of troops we have in Iraq. In fact, we withheld troops and resources from the war in Afghanistan in order to go to war in Iraq.
Alien: So you put minimal effort into going to war with the actual terrorists who attacked you and used most of your military forces to overthrow the government of Iraq which had no involvement in the attack?
Us: That’s about right.
Alien: Just out of curiosity, is there anything else significant about Iraq?
Us: Well Iraq is the second largest source of crude oil in the world, which is pretty much the main source of energy that runs our planet. Oh, and the dictator of Iraq once tried to have our current President’s father killed.
Alien: Are those the reasons you went to war?
Us: Of course not. We launched this pre-emptive war because we had evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, could some day use those weapons against us.
Alien: Now I understand. So after you overthrew the Iraqi government you found and destroyed their weapons of mass destruction?
Us: Well, OK, you see it turns out they didn’t actually have any weapons of mass destruction and they didn’t really pose any threat to us.
Alien: So you mistakenly went to war based on incorrect evidence. But your leaders obviously believed Iraq was a threat though, right?
Us: Yes, of course. Although we now know that our leaders had been told by intelligence experts before the war began that much of the evidence they presented to justify the war was false.
Alien: And just how many people have died in this war with Iraq?
Us: Sadly, the number of Americans who’ve died is over 2200 and growing every day. That’s not counting the thousands who’ve been maimed or wounded. Oh, and somewhere between 30 and a hundred thousand Iraqis have died too. Give or take a few thousand. We don’t officially keep track of the number of Iraqi civilians who died in this war.
Alien: But, on the bright side, at least now you know that there are no terrorists in Iraq.
Us: Yeah, well that’s the funny part. It seems there were no organized terrorist groups in Iraq before the war but now huge numbers of terrorists have gone to Iraq to fight against us and many Iraqis have joined the insurgency against us.
Alien: This war must have at least reduced the threat of terrorism throughout the rest of your planet?
Us: Well, uh, no. Even if you don’t count the terrorist attacks in Iraq, the rate of terrorist attacks worldwide has actually increased significantly since the war in Iraq began.
Alien: So virtually none of the reasons you went to war were true?
Us: Not necessarily. Our president now says we went to war to remove a brutal dictator and to bring democracy and stability to Iraq.
Alien: So does your country often go to war to remove dictators?
Us: No. In fact there are many brutal dictators in that part of the world but most of them are our friends or they sell us oil so we leave them alone.
Alien: But at least Iraq is now a stable democracy.
Us: Um, not quite. Our government is now lowering expectations about any hope for democracy in Iraq. The Iraqi constitution is leaning toward becoming an Islamic theocracy. We’re told that women will have fewer rights in the new Iraq than they did under Saddam Hussein. Plus, there are dozens of violent attacks and bombings every day and our Secretary of Defense recently said it may be ten or twelve years before there is any kind of stability in Iraq.
Alien: So let me see if I understand everything you’ve told me. You went to war with Iraq because you were attacked by people who didn’t come from Iraq, weren’t trained in Iraq and weren’t supported by the government of Iraq, yet you’ve devoted relatively few resources to pursue the still-at-large leaders of the group that did attack you. You also went to war to eliminate weapons of mass destruction which didn’t exist and to depose a dictator who posed no threat to you while you ignored the crimes of other equally brutal dictators. Your war was intended to fight terrorism but has dramatically increased the occurrence of terrorism worldwide. You wanted to bring stability and democracy to Iraq but the country is more violent and unstable now than ever before and any kind of true stability may be a dozen years away. Meanwhile the emerging government of Iraq is nothing close to a true democracy and may become an Islamic theocracy. I can’t help but wonder, have your leaders learned anything from this war?
Us: Our president believes this war is a smashing success and says it’s a model to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world.
Alien: Just out of curiosity, does your species plan to travel to other planets some day?
Us: Certainly. We love to explore outer space and we want to travel to other stars and planets in the coming decades.
Alien: Thanks for talking to me. I need to return to my planet to discuss this concept you explained to me of “pre-emptive war” against people who may someday pose a threat to you. Good bye.
Boy, we have a couple of haters posting. Hey, you wouldn’t be responding so strongly if it wasn’t the truth!
