Why War-Mongering Bothers Me

I'm 32 years old. I first got involved in politics in 2002, when I was a 19 year old kid, and was spurred to action by the debate over the Iraq War, a war I opposed at that time, and still do. There was no evidence that linked Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. There were no WMD's in Iraq. We invaded that nation, took it over, and then occupied it for about a decade, spending hundreds of billions of dollars and losing thousands of lives. It was a failure for the U.S. We achieved little, and we lost a lot.

I had a lot of friends go to Iraq. Some lost limbs, some came back with bad PTSD, and some have come back to a failing VA system that isn't meeting their needs. They paid a high price. The nation paid a high price. We did so on false pretenses.

We did so because of ignorance and fear within the public, the same ignorance and fear we are hearing from the Republican Party a dozen years later. People who can't point to where ISIS is based out of on a map, voicing opinions that they agree with Ted Cruz on "carpet-bombing" said area, people agreeing with Trump about making Muslims carry ID cards around like the Nazis did to the Jewish people, and voicing opinions that we should ban Muslims. We're a half step from sending ground troops into Syria and Iraq with this crowd.

Your ignorance has consequences, namely the failure that was the last Iraq War. If you want to shriek and overreact about things you don't understand, you give aid to some of the idealogical types who would fight for no reason. You set us up for failure. You do your country a disservice. Let's try to get it right this time.