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 * What these stories reveal about ourselves and our virtues**

Nine-eleven has changed the world for the past several years. Two years after the attack on the twin towers, the Iraq War, sometimes called the Second Gulf War, began. The main rationale for the Iraq War offered by U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and their domestic and foreign supporters was that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. These weapons, it was argued, posed a threat to the United States and its allies. In the 2003 State of the Union address, Bush claimed that the U.S. could not wait until the threat from Saddam Hussein became imminent. After the invasion, however, no evidence was found of such weapons. To support the war, other U.S. officials cited claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. Yet others pointed to the abuse of human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the need to establish democracy in Iraq as reason for the war. They have also claimed that the economic importance of Iraq's oil supply limited non-military options. Now what the war needed was soldiers to be sent over to Iraq.

The War on Terrorism, also known as the War on Terror, is the term from the Bush administration to refer to the various military, political, and legal actions taken to "curb the spread of terrorism" following the September 11 attacks on the United States. The policies it marks have been a source of ongoing controversy, as critics argue it has been used to justify the one sided "inevitable war", human rights abuses, and other violations of international law. Between 2002 and 2005, protests against the war were held in many cities worldwide, often coordinated to occur around the world. These demonstrations against the war were mainly organized by anti-war organizations, many of which had been formed in opposition to the invasion of Afghanistan. In some Arab countries demonstrations were organized by the State. Europe saw the biggest mobilization of protesters, including a rally of 3 million people in Rome. The first of these protests in 2002 are said to be the biggest global peace protests before a war actually started. After the biggest series of demonstrations, on February 15, 2003, the New York Times writer claimed that they showed there were two superpowers on the planet, the United States and worldwide public opinion.

From http://inourtime.wikispaces.com/Chapter+6 "My squad got orders from higher ranks to wipe out everyone, even the civilians. We shot a man with his hands up. We even shot women and children here and there; the number of people… is this why we’re here for? Firing on civilians and securing oil fields was not the duty I signed up for. Why are Marines learning to shut down oil wells – are we the Environmental Protection Agency now? I’m in the desert, ready to kill, putting your tax dollars to work. Unfortunately, your tax dollars went into a lot of civilians. I was there. I pulled the trigger. It made no sense to me."

From http://inourtime.wikispaces.com/Chapter+7 “I was a warrior, you know? I always have been. I’ve always felt that way… that if there are people who can’t defend themselves, it’s my responsibility to do that... “I didn’t want, you know, ‘Died deluded in Iraq’ over my gravestone,” I said. “If I’d gone, personally, because of the things that I believed, it would have felt wrong. Because I saw it as wrong, if I died there or killed somebody there, that would have been more wrong... I started basic training just weeks after Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, and I was prepared to get even for September 11 in Afghanistan. But I didn’t see a connection between the attack on America and Saddam Hussein."

Critics of the invasion claimed that it would lead to the deaths of thousands of Coalition soldiers and Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and that it would moreover damage peace and stability throughout the region and the World. From these stories, it can be seen that some of these people have no idea of what they are fighting for in this invasion. What this basically shows is that what we have here is a war where people have no idea of what they are fighting for. Furthermore, those who do know what they're fighting for might see that they don't have the same ideas as those who send in the soldiers. These stories reveal that even though we have a voice to what we believe in, talking here about the war, those who lead our countries have their own say and virtues that cover ours leaving us with no voice or no say to the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_2003_Iraq_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Iraq_War http://www.allusa.it/img/galleria/Twin%20Towers%20&%20Battery%20Park.jpg