Awkward Questions On War

While I've been watching / reading the news from Iraq over the last couple of weeks, many thoughts have passed through my mind. The pros and cons of war in Iraq. Alternative perspectives of the conflict.

I've tried to see things from different viewpoints, in order to reach my own conclusions about the war. During this time, I've been asking myself some awkward questions. Having an internal debate. I thought I might share some of my 'awkward questions' with you all, and then perhaps you can share your thoughts.

Has the concerns / objections raised by anti-war protestors, concerning the death of Iraqi civilians by US / UK military action, actually played into the hands of Saddam? Has he seen this as a potential weakness on our part (The west), and decided to use our 'weakness' against us, by moving Iraqi military units into towns and cities, thereby creating human shields out of Iraqi civilians? Is he willing to sacrifice civilians, in order to use public opinion in the west, for his own strategic purposes? Does that mean anti-war protestors who have been vocal and overt in their objections to war, because of possible Iraqi casualties, have ironically endangered the lives of innocent Iraqis? Would it actually have been better to show less concern about civilian deaths, and therefore left Saddam and his generals with a very limited choice of defensive strategies against the superior might of the US / UK military forces? Would this perhaps have brought about a quicker, and maybe even a non-violent resolution to the situation? Did the anti-war protests, give Saddam a glimmer of hope?

Many people feel that the war is really about securing oil fields, or that there is insufficient evidence of weapons of mass destruction, to justify war / invasion of Iraq. Although many of the same people who feel that the war is really about oil etc, are also willing to admit that Saddam is an evil dictator, and Iraq would be better of without him.

Is removing an 'evil dictator' who has tortured, imprisoned, murdered thousands of Iraqis, an insufficiently moral or just reason to go to war? Do we really need a 'better' reason to remove him? If Hitler & Nazism existed in Europe today, and we knew about ongoing, industrialized extermination of millions of Jews in concentration camps, would we feel it was better to refrain from war, and use diplomacy / sanctions instead? How many years would we wait for sanctions to take effect against a modern day Hitler and holocasut?

Obviously there may be a difference in scale between the level of genocide & fear in Saddam's Iraq, in comparison to Hitler's Europe. But what is the magic number of deaths that we need to reach, before we should act militarily? One hundred thousand? One million? How many innocent Iraqis should we sacrifice, in order to avoid war?

Of course you could say that going to war against Iraq, will also mean we have to sacrifice innocent Iraqis (Collateral damage). Many people perhaps feel this is immoral. But is it more moral for us to wait, and watch as Saddam kills / terrorizes innocent Iraqis? We could of course simply use sanctions instead of weapons to attack Saddam's power, but we've been trying that for a considerable period of time, with limited effect. Sanctions also harm the innocent. Indeed, it's unlikely that Saddam or his inner circle and supporters have suffered much at all from sanctions. Dictators tend to look after their own. While Saddam lives in a palace, ordinary Iraqis go without because of sanctions.

There are many questions about the west's previous support of Saddam, and the supply of weapons etc. Many lessons that need to learned. However, does the west's recent history in Iraq, and previous support of Saddam, preclude us from trying to remove him now. If we helped create a monster, does that mean we shouldn't help destroy it?

If the war is REALLY about oil, if there isn't any weapons of mass destruction, if there are various hidden agendas at work behind the scenes, does it really matter? If the final outcome of this war, is an Iraq free from Saddam's tyranny, should we be overly concerned that his removal is simply a by-product of a quest for oil?

Sometime between the year 2014 and 2025, many experts predict that the world's oil reserves will go into terminal decline. Gas supplies will follow within about a decade of this. When the realization of impending fuel / power shortages begins to take hold in the minds of the average consumer, will they feel that a war to simply secure and extend the period of oil supplies, was 'immoral', or a good idea? Will the avoidance of 'collateral damage', be a priority in our minds, as we scramble for the last remaining oil fields in the Iraqi oil war of 2020?