For All the Wrong Reasons

Prompt: Blog on Mailer

Reading Mailer’s essay, I found that he makes many good points to try to explain why America is at war today. One point he makes very clear is why we shouldn’t be at war. I agree because it seems we are now at war for all the wrong reasons.

Mailer points out that most Americans are against the war on terrorism and that all evil is connected. He states that war with Iraq will satisfy our need to get even with what happened on September 11th. He suggests that it will never be admitted, but oil is also a reason we are at war. Also, Mailer says that Americans are violating their religious beliefs as well as the Muslims are violating their Islamic beliefs. Our religious beliefs should not be to get even with violence, but to make peace with one another.

Since the attacks on September 11th, America has been living in fear. Even while fighting this war, Americans still worry about the safety of America in wondering if something tragic will happen again. It seems that we are causing the Iraqi people just as much fear. Does that make us terrorists to them? I would think so. This goes back to Mailer’s point that all evil is connected. Bush seems to think that since the terrorists were from Iraq, that all Iraqi people are evil. This statement is false! I think it is wrong to be causing so much fear among the Iraqis and making them hate us even more.

It is hard to know the real truth behind the war and we Americans will probably never know. We are supposed to be fighting against terrorism, but we are just making it an ongoing battle. Although, killing their innocent people seems like the right thing to do, just to make them see how much pain we went through, could easily be resolved another way to help put a stop to terrorism. We need to think about the Iraqis and remember that all of them were not responsible for the attacks.

So the real question is what are we really fighting for? We shouldn’t be in this war. It seems we are fighting for our way of life, but we should respect that the Muslims have their own way. We have no right to say that their way of life is wrong, just because it doesn’t match up with ours. We should be helping the Iraqis instead of making them live in fear. After all, fear will not win us this war.