2008 Woodie Awards
Lesson Learned: It's Time to Change
Opportunity to Change President and Policy Cannot Come Soon Enough
Hakim Abdi
Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Opinion
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Today I want to talk about the current President of the United States of America. Yes, I'm afraid that the frequency of poor decisions made by our leader has reached its limit. Elections are coming up and Oct. 4 was the last day to register; I hope all of you reading this are ready to vote this unqualified person out of the office he wasn't supposed to get in the first place.
Let's talk about the President's most recent attempt to install democracy in a foreign land: The country of Iraq is situated south of Turkey between Iran to the east, Syria to the west and of course our little brother Israel to the southwest. Iraq was once ruled by Saddam Hussein. He was a dictator and was in charge of everything in the country. Saddam made a big mistake of invading a smaller, weaker country - (does that sound familiar?) - Kuwait, a mistake that haunts him to this day. Anyway, the international community comes to Kuwait's aid and Iraq is labeled as the bad guy. Certain ties and privileges that Iraq had in the fields of trade, commerce and foreign relations have been soured and severed. However, the country continued to survive.
An important point to realize is that there is no proof that Saddam was a threat to the United States - I mean none whatsoever, zilch!
In any case, Iraq is invaded and Saddam is caught in a hole... literally. The country however is still in chaotic turmoil. Insurgents (as the media calls them) are everywhere and democracy can't be installed easily. It will be a far day from now when Iraq will be stable again; thanks to this invasion another country has been destabilized.
Now wouldn't it have been better to leave Iraq alone? I really do not see a meaningful reason of sending American soldiers, whose primary task is to defend America, to a country with which we don't even have foreign relations. If Iraq had attacked the US (it must be completely imprudent to do that) and waged a full out offensive, then all of this would've been utterly justifiable.
Let's talk about the President's most recent attempt to install democracy in a foreign land: The country of Iraq is situated south of Turkey between Iran to the east, Syria to the west and of course our little brother Israel to the southwest. Iraq was once ruled by Saddam Hussein. He was a dictator and was in charge of everything in the country. Saddam made a big mistake of invading a smaller, weaker country - (does that sound familiar?) - Kuwait, a mistake that haunts him to this day. Anyway, the international community comes to Kuwait's aid and Iraq is labeled as the bad guy. Certain ties and privileges that Iraq had in the fields of trade, commerce and foreign relations have been soured and severed. However, the country continued to survive.
An important point to realize is that there is no proof that Saddam was a threat to the United States - I mean none whatsoever, zilch!
In any case, Iraq is invaded and Saddam is caught in a hole... literally. The country however is still in chaotic turmoil. Insurgents (as the media calls them) are everywhere and democracy can't be installed easily. It will be a far day from now when Iraq will be stable again; thanks to this invasion another country has been destabilized.
Now wouldn't it have been better to leave Iraq alone? I really do not see a meaningful reason of sending American soldiers, whose primary task is to defend America, to a country with which we don't even have foreign relations. If Iraq had attacked the US (it must be completely imprudent to do that) and waged a full out offensive, then all of this would've been utterly justifiable.