It was about this time last year that the Daily published a letter I wrote in support of the Iraq war.

This year, however, I will be marching in protest of it. I regret that letter and the naivete it represented.

I write this letter now in the hope that it will help clarify the issue for those of you who are still uncertain about the merits of this war.

We were supposed to bring freedom and democratic government to the Iraqi people. The result of our invasion, however, has been the creation of a government that lacks the ability to govern, and an efficient, highly organized guerrilla insurgency.

Although U.S. casualties, for the moment, have declined, the deaths of innocent Iraqis have skyrocketed.

The U.S. servicemen who die in Iraq at least had a choice to go there.

What choice does the average Iraqi have who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

President Bush said during the election that U.S. forces will be completely withdrawn from Iraq in five years.

I desperately hope this was only campaign rhetoric. A politically stable government in a historically unstable area takes many decades to develop.

The United States learned this lesson the hard way during the Cold War. If we leave Iraq in only five years, it is unlikely the overthrow of the Iraqi government will take more than a tank battalion outside Baghdad, and a half-dozen disaffected colonels.

A frequent argument we hear from the neo-conservatives is that Saddam Hussein on several occasions violated international law. A very ironic statement, as the legality of the U.S. invasion is questionable. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called the U.S. invasion illegal. Instead of strengthening international law, we have weakened it.

The main victim of this war though, is undoubtedly the United States itself.

The government lied about weapons of mass destruction, and it continues to mislead the public about what is actually going on in Iraq. There is nothing more threatening to the stability of a democracy then a dishonest government.

Dishonesty in a democracy undermines the government’s commitment to govern in the public interest and thus fundamentally weakens it. I hate to think that it will be my generation that will have brought about the decline of the United States. If we continue down this path, though, that is how we will be remembered.

Jonathon Kent

Senior

Physics