Five Years On

Unashamedly, we are a nation with celebration on its mind. The invasion of Iraq has been going on for five years now, so when will the jubilation actually begin?

Its an interesting paradox. On one side of the argument you could say that our presence in Iraq was completely justified and that we helped to bring down the evil oppressors. On the other side of the fence we were utterly wrong for even thinking about entering another country with domination on our minds. These are two extremely broad points-of-view. I don’t like talking about Iraq, but five years as world history warrants it as a conversation topic.

When I think of Five years as a period of time, I tend to think towards David Bowie’s apocalyptic nightmarish-wasteland as presented as the opener to Ziggy Stardust. If you looked at any of the pictures of a casual street setting in Baghdad, you would probably agree that its not too far off. The problem from here is blaming someone for this. Your run-0f-the-mill, garden variety cynics would scream “Bush did it!”. That’s a lot of damage for one man. After all, we are not robots and he’s only passing down an order. Truthfully, not many soldiers would refuse an order after contemplating the effect it would have on their reputation, but it’s not outlandish to think we are capable of making our own mind up. But this is one thing I refuse to do. I spoke to someone earlier and he said: “no matter your opinion and what you think just wish your luck to our boys and girls out there and hope they come back safe and sound”. You can point the finger, but then you would have to think of everyone involved. They’re doing it for a reason, so why should we put that down?