I will say this first: nobody loves war. War is the cause of death, hatred and destruction. Nobody can argue against that.

However, sometimes war is necissary. When I see people on the streets screaming their lungs out with protests, saying that we are murderers for going to Iraq, I'm curious. Have these people gone to Iraq?

Were the women in the crowd, usually ever pressing for "women's rights" in trivial things like millionaire golf tournaments, treated like subhumans, property of their husbands and good for nothing? Covered head to toe in cloth when in public? Unable to attain basic education, much less college education?

Do all the people who cry for racial freedom in our country and constantly accuse the US of being horribly racist know what it's like to have an entire village of their kind attacked by chemical warfare because they were Kurds? Did they die in the streets and have their offspring grow up to have horrible defects and diseases?

I know this war has been arranged in a rather messy and not always truthful way. However, when I think of Iraq under Saddam I keep seeing those horrible pictures of the dead Kurdish women and children in my head.

I would suggest a book for anyone who wants to know a bit more about the sort of things often innocent people of Iraq had to endure. It's called Mayada: Daughter of Iraq. The book is written from the testament of an Iraqi woman who had many connections with the Iraqi government and things she had to endure. It solidified my opinion about the war.