Cue Confusion

In December 2011, President Barack Obama declared the War in Iraq officially over and announced the withdrawal of thousands of American troops from the war torn country. In an article written by Greg Jaffe for the Washington Post entitled "Did the Iraq war have an iconic ending?" Jaffe depicted images of post-war reunions from previous conflicts. "The 1945 Life magazine photo of a sailor planting a kiss on an unsuspecting woman in Times Square captured the joy at the end of World War II." These sepia-toned descriptions evoked a sense of nostalgia within me and for a brief moment turned what was a brutal massacre into a romanticized moment in history. Shortly thereafter, the honeymoon was over. After searching "causes of the Iraq war" I received 20.6 million search results. Perhaps my most poignant finding was a response to a Yahoo answers question. The question read "Why did the war in Iraq end?" The first commenter said "I'm still waiting for the answer on why it began." Herein lies the dilemma. 

The famous "sailor kiss" picture.
Life Magazine, 1945

While researching the War in Iraq, I have hit a sizable wall many, many times. I find myself continually faced with the question of why the Americans went to Iraq in the first place. I am not quick to jump to conspiracy theories. Consequently, I find it hard to believe that the lives of thousands of innocent civilians and soldiers were lost solely over oil. However, upon further inspection, I have come to the sickening conclusion that this may have been just the case. Over the span of the 9-year war, the Americans located NO Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. What they did find, was a poverty stricken country full of courageous individuals trying to go about their everyday lives while living in the war zone they inflicted. 

George W. Bush and his father were both in the oil business in America. During the 1990's, Salem Bin-Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Oil. Arbusto was started by George Bush. One of Bush's earliest financial backers was James Bath. Bath served with President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the Central Intelligence Agency. According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden appointed James Bath as his business representative in Houston. Bath's relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business partner with Bath. White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same year former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA. White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the Justice Department had "blackballed" him professionally and financially because he refused to keep quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic conspiracy to launder Middle Eastern money into the bank accounts of American businesses and politicians. 

In the movie Farenheit 9/11, Michael Moore narrates a brief section over a video of President Bush on the morning of 9/11. Bush, visiting an elementary school, becomes glazed and non-responsive upon being informed of the attacks occurring in New York. During the footage, Moore asks "What was Bush thinking about while he sat there? Was he wondering if his Saudi friends and business partners from the Middle East had betrayed him?" In my research, I began to see the link between Bush and the bin Laden Family. Now, do I think Bush was privy to the attacks on 9/11 or had some connection to them? Absolutely not. However, I do feel that his ties with them created somewhat of a dependency which hindered the process of identifying the organizers behind 9/11. For instance, after the planes  hit the twin towers, airports shut down and no flights were allowed to leave the United States. However, on September 11th, several private aircrafts were hired by the United States government to fly members of the Bin Laden family visiting America back home to the Middle East. The Bin Laden's were not questioned, or even put through standardized security checks before the flights. As we all know, security measures since 9/11 have increased and made it more difficult and cumbersome for the average person to travel. Why then, was the Bin Laden family permitted to fly without any trouble at all while the rest of the nation was put on lock down? 

George Bush, on the morning of 9/11 being informed of the attack on
the World Trade Center while visiting an elementary school in Florida.
Credit: Reuters/Win McNamee/Files

Truth be told, I don't know what caused the Iraq war or why it started. I could go on forever naming facts and pulling up reports but I believe that no one will ever truly know why the war started or who the real mastermind behind it was. I can see that 20,600,000 google search results have tried. All I know, is that I've come to realize that there is nothing romantic about war. No sepia-toned memories can erase the atrocities. No yellow ribbons or bumper stickers can make violence justifiable. Where innocent people are killed, there is no glory. And when a President can wage a war without justifying it, I see the repercussions of the human condition. I feel that somewhere at the heart of the U.S./Iraq conflict there is greed. Admittedly, Iraq is an untapped market of oil. If nothing more, the U.S. may have invaded the country just to get their chance at the jackpot. I want to believe that there is more to it then that. That the U.S. thought they were doing something for the greater good. But quite frankly, I just don't see it. If there's one thing I've been reminded of over the course of my research, it is that at our biological cores, human beings are animals.