Finish what you start. That's what my mother always taught me about life. This same motto can be applied to national policy. In the April 18 Letter to the Editor "Lives lost to wasted cause in Iraq," the authors claim that "The entire war [in Iraq] is a waste." They claim the United States needs to pull out to save human life and honor the lives of soldiers that could die if the war continued.
Pulling out of Iraq is possibly the worst thing the government could do right now. There have been talks of people looking for a gradual withdrawal plan. That sounds strangely familiar doesn't it? That's right, we learned about it in history in reference to the Vietnam War. OK, yeah that's great; we can put the Iraq wall right next to the one for Vietnam while meanwhile leaving another country in ruin.
Out of all the unstable countries in that area Iraq has the best chance of being a stable modern country, and it is because of the billions of U.S. dollars flowing into it to help it rebuild. Yes, that money could be going to other things more self-serving, but take a look at the Marshall Plan. In 1947, 13 billion dollars were given to several countries in Europe to help them recover from WWII. I'm pretty sure that was as huge an amount then as we're spending now, but those countries are in good shape thanks to us.
As for Vietnam, it's possible we did all we could there, but maybe if we'd stayed and won the war Vietnam it wouldn't still be considered a developing country. So go ahead, withdraw our troops from Iraq and cut off funding. I'm sure all the soldiers who have died would much rather we build another memorial rather than actually finish what we started, so they will not have died for no reason.
I'm sure that 30 years down the road, I can buy a scarf for a couple of bucks to help some charity organization fight poverty in Iraq.
James Breen
freshman
Zahm Hall
April 18
