A Middle Eastern man came to the auto parts store I work at to get the right belt for his broken down car. I could sense his desperation as he told me how he needed to be in Boone in a half hour. Being the good-natured person I am, I offered him a helping hand, having just gotten off work.

On the way to his vehicle, I decided to inquire about his nationality. He said he was from Iraq, and most of his family was still there. He said he was from the Kurdish north so I figured he would talk highly of our actions overseas. He told me what a dream it was to be rid of Saddam, asserting that goals once thought impossible were now attainable. To date, this has been my only chance to talk to a real person affected by our military presence in that country.

This idea is now being pushed by the conservatives of our country. If someone asked me why we went to war in Iraq, I wouldn’t be able to provide an answer.

The present general consensus is that we engaged in combat to drive the evil out of Iraq. We made the country into a better place. After all, ignoring a domestic economic crisis to free a country from a terrible dictator costing us billions of dollars and the lives of brave soldiers is noble. Despite this fact, the timing of our efforts leaves much to be desired.

We went over the heads of the international community to stop a supposed immediate threat against the safety of our country. Bush and his talking heads convinced us that weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq endangered the well-being of our beloved country. At first, our government claimed to know for a fact that these weapons existed in the unstable country. Liberals who disagreed were met with arrogant criticism for being na‹ve pacifists. When we couldn’t find any, the story changed. Instead of weapons, we were made aware of weapons programs — the liberals were right.

For those who didn’t believe an immediate threat existed, another reason was touted by Bush. For the United Nations to survive as an authoritative international body, it was said violation of U.N. resolutions must be met with military action. Considering the fact that the United States has been the driving force for all of this, I doubt the United Nations is of any higher status now than it was before the war.

Without a doubt, it is a good thing Saddam Hussein is no longer the leader of Iraq. However, the ends don’t necessarily justify the means. Every country is a possible threat to our way of life. Does that mean we should eliminate all non-Americans? The United States could flourish at the expense of the rest of the world.

This idea is flawed from a moral standpoint. Despite this fact, Bush went forth in Iraq and removed the government of a sovereign state. Ironically, one of Bush’s campaign promises was to refrain from nation-building.

Members of the international community are mad at us for our arrogance. Apparently, it’s not enough for us to hear our president giving speeches proclaiming that the United States is the greatest nation in the world. In order for us to be satisfied with our superiority, we must have our hand in everything around the world.

It is very arrogant of us to assume we know what’s best for other sovereign countries. We assume our way of life to be the best under the false pretense that our success comes directly from our well-engineered government.

Don’t get me wrong, I love democracy. Our democracy allows me to criticize my government and the people who blindly follow our leaders.

However, democracy is not what made our country flourish. A dictatorship could have easily succeeded within our borders due to our vast resources and willingness to enslave people.

In the end, we need to realize we’re not perfect and understand that people are mad at us for good reason. People don’t fly planes into buildings for nothing.

We have created this hatred, and it’s up to us to stop perpetuating it. If we can’t admit we’ve done wrong, then there is no way we can successfully coexist with the rest of the world.

After talking to the Iraqi man, I felt a little more at ease about Operation Iraqi Freedom. What we did was good for a majority of Iraqis, but that doesn’t mean it was right. We must not allow ourselves to blur that fine line between good and right. If we continue to do so, more people are going to hate us, and more people are going to die.