Sai Yat Ling - week 1 Is the war worth fighting?
Ealier this morning, I saw a news article about the war between the US and Iran. According to google news, the US has reportedly shot, "two Iranian launchers" in an attempt to stop them from "shooting rockets armed with sea mines". The Iranians lost 7 soldiers and civilians from these strikes. Although Iran relies on an authoritarian form of government and supports extremist groups, I think that we need to stop bombing them because we are killing too many civilians and wasting our money on problems that lie to Israel.
First off lets look at the numbers. According to google, the Iranian population has lost about 1,700 to 2,100 civilians ever since the US has attacked Iran. Additionally, thousands of people have been injured and families have been seperated. Tragically, their homes were also heavily impacted since there were many cases in which bombs were directed to many civilian neighborhoods. The people who are mostly impacted comes down to women and children, which is suprising because they aren't the people causing the chaos. It's not fair to them because they never did anything wrong. If I was able to decide where the bombs went, I would drop them anywhere that is far away from civilians who are not a part of the war. Its similar to the war in Vietnam. Many civilians were killed, massacred, raped, and injured. It took generations for their country to rebuild, and it is likely going to be the same case for Iran unless we put down our weapons now.
Another reason why the war is not worth fighting is because money that is collected from hardworking American taxpayers is being spent on making bombs for a pointless struggle. Back home, the American population faces many problems including, Tariffs, high inflation rates, housing struggles, and Job stability. If the US would stop spending money on the war effort, the money could be redirected to solve problems that everyday Americans face. For example they could use it to work off the national dept and inflation which would benefit most of the population. Next, the middle east is not our jurdistiction. Our allies in that specific region such as Israel and Jordan should be able to control and dominate their own territory. Israel, has a very strong military and should be able to handle attacks from any direction. So, they should be able to solve their own problems instead of using us to help them. It's not helping anyone; in fact, its actually hurting the US.
In conclusion, we need to make a stronger effort to stop bombing the Iranians and start focusing on helping the US economy.
This is indeed very good analysis about the current situation. I am incredibly pleased to hear that a fellow student shares the same opinion as I do regarding the Iran situation: namely, civilian casualties are becoming way too high at the moment. I also agree: many millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are going to this war while we have issues with healthcare, climate, shortages of critical products like meat, and many more issues demanding our attention back here. I'd like to posit an idea your way though: Israel's current military dominance and situation is a result of the millions in handouts we send them. They have free healthcare and a massive armory of weaponry that would not be possible for us. I understand they are a key ally, but do you agree that it might be beneficial to reduce our extensive spending on them in favor of taking care of American citizens here? I understand this is controversial, I do not mean to ramble politically.
ReplyDeleteHi, Sai, the blog was very nicely written. I like that you use a lot of real evidence that includes the data for deaths and the broader suffering of Iranian people to build logical reasoning that later ties back to your claim that America should not be bombing Iran. Another aspect of your blog that I enjoyed is that you explore the issue through both ethical and economical lenses for the United States. It made the argument more robust and diverse. A small question: I’m not very sure of how your argument in the blog is connected to the broader quarter topic of “Language & Identity”. This blog would fit better under the second quarter which is “language & America” in my opinion. Despite this small suggestion that I have, your blog is still superb and I enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteHi Sai Yat! I 100% agree with you on this topic. Wars are absolutely devastating, especially for the innocent civilians who did not do anything wrong. In fact, I believe that wars are utterly stupid because they are decisions made by a small minority of powerful people who care about profit and decide to do stupid things and end up harming innocent people. I think it’s stupid that America uses the taxes American taxpayers work hard for to bomb, resulting in innocent civilians being harmed instead of actually achieving their goal. I think that the government should focus on the problems inside of the country right now, like you mentioned: high inflation rates, housing struggles, job instability, and plenty others. To answer the question in your title, no, the war is not worth it. Thank you for sharing your point of view, I really like hearing other people’s perspectives on current issues. One thing I’d like to add is that maybe before posting the blog, you should double check your capitalization and spelling, because some were written incorrectly.
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