From the Archives: Bush's war becomes impossible to ignore (March 20, 2003)

The story originally appreared in The Ithacan.

Bush's war becomes impossible to ignore
David Donovan

March 20, 2003

I’d promised myself I would never write a column like this. I try to avoid international issues as much as possible.

First, I feel inherently unqualified to proffer a meaningful opinion about them. What competency does an undergraduate have to analyze foreign policy?

Second, I feel the duty of this publication is to focus on local and college issues because if we don’t, no one else is likely to. Nonetheless, I can find no issue, local or otherwise, that has as much impact on Ithaca students right now as the effort to drive Saddam Hussein from power.

Like the war in Vietnam 35 years ago, the situation in Iraq becomes harder and harder for college students to take lightly. Our generation will provide the soldiers to fight and die in this conflict. Our generation will be forced to pay off the massive debt that would certainly accumulate after such a conflict.

Certainly, no issue weighs heavier on the minds of students right now and probably the country as a whole as well. In Ithaca, there seems to be a new antiwar rally every week. I’m not the rallying or protesting type, but I too am alarmed by our course of action. Mine is not a knee-jerk, peacenik opposition to conflict in Iraq, but rather one that I’ve arrived at after much thought.

I’m uncomfortable because the American people have been presented with very little evidence tying Saddam to the al-Qaida attacks on America. I need no further convincing that Saddam is a cruel and evil tyrant, for he certainly is one. But that alone does not give us a mandate to launch a pre-emptive strike.

I’m also unconvinced that Saddam has the capability to create weapons that could reach the United States, much less that he would actually use them if he did. I’m made more uncomfortable by the lack of support within the international community for our actions and more still by the many questions that remain unanswered, such as how we intend to pay for this war and what we intend to do with Iraq once we oust Saddam.

But my main concern is with our leaders, who push so hard for an armed conflict that seems totally driven by political concerns and the need of a son to avenge the father. A triumvirate of men who never served in the military, President Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, are asking our friends and relatives to risk their lives for this vengeance.

It seems to me that these men were never interested in a diplomatic outcome. The diplomatic process felt like a charade, and now the White House is on the verge of the war it sought. War, though sometimes necessary, should be a last resort and not something that should be sought after. This seems to me like an unnecessary war.

Which brings me to the other rule I’m breaking, my rule that a column should be not just about problems but also about solutions. This president, sadly, seems too intractable to allow any solution beside war. But I feel better having spoken my piece. This Opinion section remains to let you speak yours.