Addressing the United States About War

To the Citizens of the United States of America:

It has come to my attention that as a country we have done a very poor job communicating what our current wars are about and what are goals in those wars are. As of now, the war in Iraq has changed purposes a minimum of 3 times. Originally we went to war because Saddam was harboring “weapons of mass destruction”, then it changed to harboring terrorists, then to ridding a country of a tyrannical leader who oppressed its citizens. Now we are bringing democracy to a country that did not want it in the first place and that has three groups of citizens (Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiite) that all hate each other and will not get along until they have a civil war. The U.S. did do a great job towards the beginning of the War on Terror, where the public knew why we were at war, who we were fighting (Al Quada), and where the war was going on. The media keeping the citizens updated about the war status on the War on Terror changed however, when the U.S. could not find Bin Landin. This is a problem because as Citizens of the U.S. we should be part of the decision making process of what actions to take in a war and by not receiving current information it hinders us from doing our job.

While the eventual outcome of a war is good in the way that a country must rebuild its government in a way that appeases its citizens, war is not something that should be rushed into. General MacArthur once said “You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense”. While he was saying this about soldiers, this is also true about its citizens; we bind together the country. As citizens of the U.S. it is our duty to talk about war, the problems of it and its outcomes and to receive truthful information about current decisions so that we can be part of the decision making processes in our government and about war.