Mariam Durrani

Alright. It's official. We are going to war with Iraq. On Monday, Georgie's speech made it clear that the administration has found it in the "best interest of national security" to order American soldiers to be deployed to the Middle East. Internationally, the American war on Iraq is gaining momentum. That means a lot of us who missed out on Desert Storm and Vietnam are going to witness the messy imprecision of a full-scale war in the very near future. What does that mean to you? Do you think aggression against Iraq is a necessary task? Have you been provided enough reasons to believe that war is justified? Here is what some UA students circulating in the Integrated Learning Center had to say:

"At this moment, we can't sustain a war on Iraq. I would like more information on why we must attack now. Iraq has always posed a viable threat to national security and this will be different than the war in Afghanistan because we have a unique and definable enemy. Civilian casualties are an unfortunate reality of war."

"There should be a war against Iraq because Hussein is mentally deranged. It is too dangerous to leave him alone. But another very important reason to go to war is economic stability for oil reserves. Other evil dictators have had atomic, biological and chemical weapons but the reason America is after Iraq is the oil accessibility if Hussein's government was toppled."

The students I spoke to brought up a lot of important ideas. However, for those out there guilty of not staying informed about this war, shame on you. This war has the power to affect our everyday lives for the next one, five, ten years. It is imperative that everyone stays informed about the issues.

For the longest time, I kept wondering whether the deaths of civilians and soldiers are really necessary. We have recently learned from the Afghani aerial assaults that it is hard to murder the enemy from thousands of feet in the air. We killed more innocent Afghans since Sept. 11 than the number of Americans who died last September.

I realize that people will die in war and that is an inevitable reality but it seemed to me that a carefully thought out covert operation could be the best route to accomplish our goals of overthrowing Hussein without killing as many innocents.

But the idea that killing only Hussein would only strengthen the Iraqi people's hatred for the West is alarming. Hussein would become a martyr then, and those who hate him now will later revere him for dying for the Iraqi cause; when, in point of fact, he has been known to kill his own people and even family when it becomes necessary.

What worries me still is what has happened in the last 12 months. Finding and killing terrorists is very difficult ÷ and even more so to infiltrate their tight organizations. But it seems we are as close to capturing bin Laden as we were a year ago. Our intelligence capabilities are pathetic. A group of terrorists were able to infiltrate our system and bomb the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon using our own airplanes. Then we have a psycho case who has admitted to being in charge of the operation and we still have no idea where he is. Now our government wants us to go to war with Iraq. Yes, our defense is a hundred times stronger than theirs, but God, I hope that our intelligence is also smarter. The precedent they have set is insulting.

The oil aspect is nothing new to us. During Desert Storm, the West did have an eye on the oil reserves, but Hussein, being the evil tyrant that he is, set ablaze the oil fields. Now is our second chance. The economy is failing, and if we could somehow get a piece of the oily pie, then maybe I'll have job when I graduate.

Joking set aside, I am not in favor of war ÷ but it's going to happen anyway. Let's just hope for the four B's: better intelligence, backing internationally, banishing Saddam and bye bye to Georgie.