This new conflict seems to have started a few months ago when Saddam Hussein decided he no longer liked the sanctions that have been on his country since the end of the Gulf War. Demanding the sanctions be lifted, he prevented U.N. inspectors to enter his weapons plants. Since then it’s been all down hill.

Now let’s think about these sanctions for a minute. These sanctions were put on Iraq to make sure that Saddam Hussein complied with weapon inspections after the Gulf War. Regardless of whether or not Saddam has met his obligations to the United Nations, the sanctions placed on Iraq have not truly affected him at all. Instead the brunt of the sanctions has been felt by the Iraqi people.

I want to put politics aside for a moment, because personally, I’m not the most knowledgeable in that area. What I do want to speak about though is humanity. The United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization reported 1.2 million people dead as a result of the sanctions. 576,000 of those were children.

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Children that didn’t know who the United States or Saddam Hussein was, children who could care less about wars and policies, children who were quite simply innocent. Now, according to UNICEF, 4,500 children are dying each month. Not to mention countless thousands of other innocents.

The sanctions that have been placed on Iraq must be lifted before thousands more lose their lives. If a war begins again in Iraq then that number will be even greater. I’m sure many in Washington can sit back and comfortably write off lives as necessary casualties, which they do every day, but as a concerned individual I can’t sit back and just think there isn’t something that can be done even if it is saying no. Those in Washington will answer for their crimes sure enough, may God help their souls.

I in no way support Saddam Hussein as a leader. What needs to be remembered is that he is a dictator. The people around him have no choice but to follow what he says that is how a dictatorship works. The United States should not be targeting Iraq, they should be targeting Saddam. The people have no reason to suffer for their basic inalienable rights, does that sound familiar, America? For seven years the Iraqi people have died. Plain and simple they’ve died, and there is no way I feel I can be made to believe this was worth it, this was unavoidable. The United States is willing to do anything to protect its interests, absolutely anything.

The media has done an excellent job misinforming us of the true nature to the situation in Iraq. Like the Japanese in World War II and Russia in the 1980s, the Middle Eastern countries have been labeled the great evil we as a country should fear. Although the character of the leaders of some countries in the Middle East are definitely questionable, we need to remember what they do as leaders does not reflect the people, the people are pawns.

Many people go on and on about how anti-American the Middle East is, but think about that for a second. Wouldn’t you be anti-American too if you just had to bury your child because of the sanctions?