The Fiddling Continues While America Burns

One of the greatest principles our nation was the fact it was founded and built upon the ideals of justice and liberty. The cohesion that makes this possible is because our country was originated on a rule that "all men were created equally." Our Founding Fathers had an ideal of creating a nation that could be a moral example guided by natural law. This sentiment is found in John Adam's words when he stated, "I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth." [1]

The dual argument over the justification over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be clearly summed up by the words of Murray N. Rothbard who states, "War, then, is only proper when the exercise of violence is rigorously limited to the individual criminals." [2] In the war against Afghanistan, we were acting out of defense and our interest was in protecting our homeland but the war in Iraq was a pre-eminent assault built out of fear and lies.

We must ask ourselves what type of example we are setting in the war in Iraq and whether it lives up to the ideals of our foundations. Invariably many will argue that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who needed to be removed to free their people but we must ask was it our job to do so. If we look closely at the Declaration of Independence, we can see that it is the duty of the citizens to create change when their government becomes destructive. This would have put the duty of removing Saddam with the Iraqi people and the conclusion should be made that it is not America's duty to be the evictors of bad governments and in essence playing the role of a global police force.