In the September 12, 2002, issue of the Catholic Herald, I wrote an editorial called “Iraq war: President has not made the case.” At that time, I didn’t think President George W. Bush had succeeded in mounting a convincing argument in favor of invading Iraq.
I agreed that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous dictator who had sacrificed his own people’s well-being to become a military power. However, it wasn’t proven that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Later, we learned here weren’t any such weapons in Iraq.
Committed to two wars for over 10 years
Yet on March 20, 2003, the United States led an invasion into Iraq. At the same time we were also committed to a war in Afghanistan.
It has been more than 10 years, and we’re still involved in both of those countries. Fortunately U.S. involvement is lessening, but we’ve spent a great deal of money and resources — and most importantly lost many lives — in these past 10 years.
Now we’re contemplating military action in Syria. Haven’t we learned our lesson yet?