War should have been the last resort

Watching the news and listening to the radio, I have realized what lengths people will go to in order to justify their own agendas. Even more pathetic though are the blind followers and believers of these advocates of hatred their disregard of the preservation of human life. People who could not point out Iraq on a map now have a deep feeling of hatred toward people they have never been educated about. All because of the so-called “leaders of this world” wanting to demonize a people before they attack them.

Why we don’t realize that this is happening right in front of our eyes, I still don’t know. You know who suffers from this propaganda? The people. Not the political leaders who are sitting on their thrones safe and out of harm’s way. It is the soldiers who are obeying the command of their superior officers that will suffer. It is the American citizens who travel around the world who are being treated with discrimination and anger because of our disregard of the world’s opinions who will suffer. It is the already-tortured Iraqi citizens who will suffer.

Why has human life become such a disregarded issue in the relevance of going to war? Instead of human lives, it has become numbers and statistics. America is supposed to be a symbol of knowledge and education. Instead, we have become slaves to CNN, ABC and especially FOX, believing every word they say. What we seem to forget is that all of these major networks that I have mentioned are influenced by the wishes of large companies around the world. Media outlets that are not affected by such biases, such as NPR and PBS, are not regarded as real or credible.

If we really are after Saddam, why are we clearing everything in our way to Baghdad? Why did we give the United Nations, an organization that we previously had so much reverence for, the middle finger, without caring about the repercussions of our actions? Is this really the way to help an oppressed nation? By destroying whatever progress they have made in the past 10 years and putting them back to square one again?

Why do we, as a nation, feel that fighting smaller and less developed countries will make us look big and bad? Aren’t those tactics that bullies use?

We can thank the Bush administration for putting us in this mess. The economy is going down the drain, no one is thinking about what is going to happen to the Iraqis after the war and the world opinion of Americans is probably the worst it has ever been. But, hey, we killed those damn Iraqis didn’t we?

As a Muslim, Islam teaches me to respect and preserve human life and use war as an absolute last resort. Even if there is a war, Islam forbids the rejoicing over another human being’s death, even if they are your enemy. Such morals and values are not unique to Islam but found in most of the major religions of today. Why have we ignored these valuable morals and lessons learned over time and returned to the same mistakes that civilizations made before us?

Knowledge is the key to battle ignorance. Become a soldier.

Naveed Kamal is asophomore majoringin business management.