Editor,
President Bush used 46 percent of his State of the Union address to explain the epic struggle our nation faces: We are forced to fight Islamic terrorists and their fascist ideology. He tells us they want to destroy Western civilization, and if they are not challenged, he believes they have the potential to succeed. But do his actions demonstrate the fear he sells?
In World War II, our country was told it was in an ideological struggle that, if lost, would mean the end of our way of life and the rule of fascism throughout the world. In 1939, the United States had 174,000 men in the standing military and 200,000 in the National Guard; by 1945, the military had exploded to 12,350,000, and the entire economy was devoted to creating the weapons needed to fight this war. Every person in the U.S. was not only asked but forced to sacrifice for the cause.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our country was once again attacked. Our president said we were in an epic struggle and this country was ready to sacrifice. So what did Bush ask of his fellow countrymen? He told us to go shopping. Is this the action required by a society in an epic battle for freedom? Ask any person who was alive during World War II if shopping was the sacrifice asked of him or her when Hitler was taking over Europe.
So I ask, is the fear being sold by Bush equal to the threat? Do you believe the ideology of Osama bin Laden has the power to destroy the U.S. and should be feared to the same degree as Germany or Japan in World War II? Does al-Qaida, like the Soviets during the Cold War, have the potential to remove the U.S. from the earth?
If Bush believed his own asinine rhetoric, he would not have asked us to go shopping days after the U.S. was attacked by a formidable foe. I am certain the U.S. will not be destroyed, regardless of the outcome in Iraq.
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Where is our sacrifice? The only people in the U.S. who have been asked to make sacrifices are the people in the military who have been forced to fight and their families. The people who have sacrificed most for this president's ill-fated actions, though, are the Iraqi people.
Bush wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq by 20,000. What will 20,000 troops do in a country of 25 million that is consumed by violence? What will 20,000 troops do in a country that possesses the resources to maintain this level of violence for hundreds of years?
If we are going to have a chance to win in Iraq, it will require hundreds of thousands of additional troops, hundreds of billions of dollars and a draft. Neither this country nor Bush have the will or desire to bring about peace in Iraq.
The addition of 20,000 troops will do nothing but delay the inevitable and, in the process, expose more soldiers to injury and death.
Isaac Padilla
UNM student
