The war is upon us

-          By Simon Møll Jensen

Even though we are in the 21^st century, war is still everyday life. We hear, see and talk about it every day. In Denmark we mostly hear about it through the news, but Denmark is involved in war. Right now we have troops stationed in Afghanistan trying to unite the country by fighting the Taliban. Less than a month ago a war just ended in Libya. Denmark supported the people in Libya who tried to kill Muhammad Gaddafi’s supporters and the Colonel himself. Today Gaddaffi is dead and Denmark has pulled back the troops and equipment. Back in 2003 America invaded Iraq. Many European countries supported this decision and joined in. Denmark was one of the supporting countries and at the highest we had around 500 soldiers in Iraq plus equipment for millions of Euros. Today the war is over, but the military in Iraq isn’t yet strong enough to take care of the country by themselves, so America still got some troops there just to make sure nothing takes an unfortunate turn. But why did we make such a dramatic decision about starting a new war? The USA presented several reasons why we should go to war against Iraq. The number one reason was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them against other nations. Another important fact was that after the attack in 2001 everybody was afraid and aware of terrorism which also was a main reason why the war started. The USA said that Iraq supported Al-Qaeda, which is a known terrorist group, and therefore the United Nations were afraid that Iraq would pass weapons on to Al-Qaeda. Somehow it doesn’t look so bad if going to war means sparing innocents lives. But was it correct entering the war? In hindsight it’s easy to act smart when it happened years ago, but I truly am not sure if it was the right decision or not. How can a government which is supposed to know “everything” make such a mistake. Claim there are weapons of mass destruction, and after a few hundred thousand civilians and soldiers have entered the gateway to heaven, tell the public there were no such weapons of mass destruction, of any kind. Based on those facts the war shouldn’t have taken place.

Many lives have been taken trying to give everyone freedom which everything is almost about in some way. By freedom I mean democracy because then the adults can vote for what they believe in. I don’t think any countries have lost someone to get democracy and therefore it is our duty to help everyone achieve democracy, if they want so. And my guess is that Iraq wanted democracy. When Saddam had the power of Iraq there were no free rights or anything. People who criticized Saddam were easily locked away and killed afterwards. And I think we should take our responsibility as the “free people” and try to free others. But it’s a lot harder than it sounds. The cost of innocents’ lives and soldiers has been enormous. I know it’s not logic to compare human lives to money in any way, but I’m going to do it anyways. It’s not cheap to send five hundred thousand soldiers to fight a war on the other side of the world. In the next ten to twenty years The USA might not be the power nation they used to be. Maybe that money spent in the Iraq War could have prevented this from happening. But I do also think America had to send some kind of signal that terrorism isn’t allowed and will be punished because it is bad and can change lots of lives pretty fast. I don’t support war but I have to admit I think it was necessary to remove Saddam and practically end his life. A person like Saddam is not the future in any ways. We must not forget that the Iraq War could have prevented terrorism and therefore could have saved many innocent lives. We can’t change what happened, but maybe we don’t have to. Democracy have come to Iraq, and I think it will last forever.