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Opinion

'Benefits' distract us from lost lives, 
'reasons' for being there

Daniela Carpio
Opinion Columnist

War is necessary, or so we are lead to believe. Throughout history, war has proven destructive to civilizations. For the United States, wars have always had some benefit that makes the loss a miniscule price to pay, once matters are accounted for. 

The deceit can be seen in the propaganda that engulfed all modern war. With World War I, President Wilson promised the "war to end all wars." In World War II, the fight against fascism was our driving force. The Korean and Vietnam Wars had us fighting a domino effect: the spread of communism. But at the end of each war, we are given more explanation, more excuses and more benefits gained from the death of our families to make us forget that they, like so many others, died in vain. 

World War I brought about the Geneva Convention rules to "humanize" combat among nations and the predecessor of the United Nations. World War II successfully made a thriving nation out of us after nearly 10 years of economic depression, giving us and the other powers of the world a new toy: the nuclear bomb. Vietnam helped America gain a voice against the government and usher in civil rights out of the need to separate ourselves from the communist oppressors, in addition to making us the babysitter to every international conflict since.

Perhaps more importantly, out of each war, we have gained technology that has improved the standard of life of modern civilization. From the first tanks in World War I to Sputnik and from cars to the Internet, we owe our comfort to the great American men and women that have died for our freedom and our well-being. With that comfort, they also empowered us to continue the race for more comfort through war. 

With the conflict we now face in the Middle East gaining greater opposition, even the government seems to have forgotten why we were there in the first place. The mistake has been to branch out into an aerial police instead of directly achieving our goals. I'm sure that military experts will argue that this is the only way of dissipating further attacks on us, that Hussein was an instigator of such attacks. But these are the explanations and excuses of a campaign that has yet to deliver the promised goals. 

In the future, when our current goals are achieved in time to have a major effect on the next election, new, fresh and innovating gains will be linked to our time in Iraq -- economic gains, political gains, moral gain, anything to distract us from sobering reality of lives lost without a cause.

Carpio, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at nielaca@hotmail.com.