The United States needs to lead a coalition to Rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq

This is a speech I wrote Before the Invasion of Iraq in 2003

Imagine living in a country where there has been 20+ years of war from soviet invaders to Islamic Fundamentalists and finally to US air power and special forces, a place where children don’t have toys but AK-47’s and there hasn’t been running water in some places since 1979. If you can imagine this, it would be allot like what it is in Afghanistan.

Imagine living in a country where your family members have been going missing for 20+ years. After wars with Iran, in the 80’s and a battle against the world for Kuwait, Iraq has finally been lifted from the hands of Saddam Hussein but now after Iraq has been Bombed back to the 1950’s, the US has taken control and the Iraqis now face violence from the people who would resist the American occupation.

The hardships that the people of these two countries have gone through even before the United States invasion is almost enough to make someone want to rebuild. But after the B-52’s have dropped their payloads and defeated the Dictators and Islamic Fundamentalists Afghanistan and Iraq need to be rebuilt more then ever.

Despite weather or not you were for America’s wars in South West Asia, they have now been started and both of the conflicts are uncompleted. But setting aside their completion the U.S. has an obligation and a strategic need to Rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq.

Today I am going to argue that the U.S. should Rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, out of moral obligations and strategic reasons.

The US military helped to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban were the Islamic Fundamentalist government that sheltered al Qa’eda and Usama bin Laden while they recruited and trained terrorists to attack the western world.

In Iraq the US lead a coalition to defeat Saddam Hussein, a Dictator who murdered his own people in the hundreds of thousands as well as attempting to take over other middle east countries.

In both situations we were responsible for bringing the people of these countries to there knees and we must help them stand on their own.

If the United States goes to war with a country then we have a Moral Obligation to rebuild it. We must show the World that our military actions are not to conquer empire or to swat at annoying little countries that get in our way. The United States people believe that our military is used for good, action against evil. This can be true, but we cannot decimate our Enemies government, infrastructure, culture, and environment, then leave and let someone else deal with it. The US will be seen as an evil force if we do this. As the most powerful military might in the world we must convince the world that we are not a threat to little countries. We must show them that it is in our interest to use military force against common enemies of the people. Our enemies are not the people of the nations themselves, but the leaders or factions of people inside these countries. If we destroy Saddam and Al Qa’eda and we leave the people with nothing do they not feel like victims in the war as well? We must convince the Afghanis and the Iraqis that they are not our targets but the small groups of people who are controlling them are our enemies.

Because we have the most powerful military the US poses a threat even if we are not aggressive. The way to show the world that we aren’t out for empire is to rebuild and make even better then before the countries we “liberate”. We must do this with little or no reward.

If we are going to criticize leaders or groups for attacking our citizens then we must not do the same thing. The US went to Iraq in 1991 because the Iraqis took over Kuwait for empire. If we take Iraq and Afghanistan and don’t rebuild, how different is it from staying and enslaving them.

Another reason it is important for the US to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan is for its strategic importance.

The US must rebuild so we can influence the people of these nations. Like our interest in helping the people we must help these countries develop a government that will also do just that. Republican Democracies seem to allow the best human rights worldwide so we ought to help them establish a representative government elected by the people. We also should help them to support freedom of religion and give them freer markets. With freedom of religion all of the different peoples can worship as they see fit and it will curb Islamic fundamentalism, which tries to vanquish all those who are different. Freer markets can increase the wealth of a people and so bring up the standard of living making the peoples happier, healthier, and wiser.

We also need to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq because if we leave before they are rebuilt can we expect that the nation won’t fall into worse leadership. A return to Islamic Fundamentalist Government in Afghanistan or the creation of one in Iraq would set our goals back further then when we started. Won’t the Afghanis and Iraqis hate us for taking what stability they did have? Won’t they still be a threat to us if we don’t help them?

Islamic Fundamentalism and Dictatorships are both our enemies in these wars. Allot of the countries surrounding Iraq and Afghanistan our Islamic Fundamentalists or Dictatorships. Both Iraq and Afghanistan could easily revert to such governments but more importantly a successful Democratic Iraq and Afghanistan will help to spread the seeds of Democracy in the other countries therefore destroying our enemies nonviolently.

I see also that it is not just important for the US to be involved. Morally the US has an obligation to Rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq but other nations should help because they too are at threat from Dictators and Islamic fundamentalism. All countries could benefit from a free and prosperous Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some would believe that rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq is wrong and that we shouldn’t be involved.

Some think because they didn’t like the war in the first place that we should leave. Some say that the Iraqis don’t want us there so we should leave. A few of my favorite arguments to discredit are that we shouldn’t have to pay for these countries to be rebuilt when we have problems of our own, or someone says that too many Americans will die when we rebuild.

When someone tells me that we shouldn’t pay to rebuild or that to many will die I say look at the World Wars. After WWI the Allies didn’t rebuild Germany. In fact they made it pay major debts and even tacked on War Reparations to the Germans bills. Coupled with world depression, Germany remained in ruins. Germans were very poor and harbored hatred towards the Allied Powers that had won the war. Eventually in an attempt to build a better government on their own the Germans elected Hitler to be their leader. WWII then commenced and the Allies were forced to fight an even more devastatingly costly war in both casualties and money. Could the war and its costs have been thwarted. Could the suffering of the German and American people been halted. Many historians and contemporaries knew that if the Allies had helped Germany instead of leaving it in squalor, the largest war known to man may never have occurred.

America learned from their mistake, and in 1945 rebuilt not just Germany and Japan but many European Countries. Now if we look at our old adversaries today we can see that they are our best friends. Germany and Japan are two of the richest countries in the world. They are both Democracies and have never reverted back to their Dictator or Fundamentalist Governments. So I ask you will rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq save us from other wars? Will it prevent us from loosing more American lives and spending more money in foreign countries?

There are so many arguments against rebuilding our enemies that can be answered by the World War Analogies. But another argument might be that we would stretch our troops to thin if we stayed in Iraq and Afghanistan. I could almost agree with this point but there are a few flaws in its argument. One, we have very safe boarders when it comes to needing military protection. Both Canada and Mexico have very good relations with the US and even if there were an invasion we would repel them in days because Mexico and Canada have miniscule militaries in comparison to ours. Two, there is no better place for our troops to be other then back home. But yet we have troops in several countries, which do nothing but upset the locals. No place in the world needs Americans troops to protect a rebuilding process like Afghanistan and Iraq! Not only because of some of the other things I have already mentioned but also because it gives us an aggressive presence in the most hostile region of the world.

As I have shown the United States needs to Rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. Not only do we have a moral obligation to the people of those countries but also the entire world has strategic reason for these two countries to prosper.