UK Youth Parliament - Debatable Issue 5 - text only version |
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Contents Young people set to storm House of Lords The great sex & relationships debate |
Iraq five years on: your views | |
With the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaching there is much attention on the future of the troubled country. Whilst the number of reported deaths have declined since the US troop surge last summer, recent bomb attacks indicate that the security situation is still very fragile. MYPs were asked what they thought the future held for Iraq, whether the invasion had improved the lives of Iraqi people and whether they would support a similar invasion of another country. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harry Smith Being one of those inexplicably rare people who actually disagree with murder on principle, I am entirely against war of all kind, and never more so than in the current conflict in Iraq. The moving of UK and US forces into Iraq has been nothing more or less than the Vietnam war all over again. Militarily, the soldiers have been completely unable to suppress a covert, highly motivated and suicidal resistance movement; politically, both here and in Iraq, our treatment of prisoners has been sickening, calling into question the civilization we are so desperate to defend; and economically, it has cost the taxpayer huge amounts. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward Hauschild The Iraq war has been blown out of proportion by the media. The British intentions for the war were basically good. The British forces have behaved admirably in Iraq, and deserve the highest praise for their efforts. Due to the media’s dislike of the military, this is not happening. I would support a war of this type in future in the case of deposing a tyrant. However, the coalition forces must put more effort into reconstruction, instead of the problem in Iraq where the Iraqis were left to fend for themselves while the American troops went off to fight ‘terrorists’. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Bartle In the long term, Iraq will hopefully complete what has been a painful transition to a functioning democracy. Iraq will never be a model democracy, but anything that resembles democratic government will be better than the tyrannical rule of Saddam Hussein. As a liberal democracy in which people enjoy enormous political and civil rights, I believe that the UK, along with our allies such as the USA, has a moral duty to spread liberal democracy, human rights and the rule of law, across the world using force if necessary. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fiona Welsh Depending who becomes the next President of America will, I think, determine whether the war will carry on or not. At the moment the war has been pointless, which can only lead to more retaliations by those who live in Iraq. A peace conference of some kind needs to be negotiated fast before things get out of hand. Iraq has been used as a game of ‘Risk’ without any thought on how the civilians of Iraq would be able to handle the war. World War One was meant to be the war to end all wars but since then there has been countless others. This isn’t right. Why is it in every lifetime somebody sees a war? War is a waste on valuable money, resources and most importantly lives! The leaders of countries that start the war don’t even begin to think how it may affect society and people’s loved ones because, well, they aren’t fighting in it are they? There needs to be peace campaigns all around the world, all aiming to stop war from happening over somebody’s ego being bigger than someone else’s. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Follett Whilst we should never have participated in this war led by a missile-toting Bush and his Big Oil chums, having ruined Iraq’s infrastructure we can hardly leave now. We have to pay for our mistakes. In the long term, perhaps 10 years, maybe later, the people of Iraq will see a benefit when they finally get control of their country back. But was it worth suffering 15 years of sectarianism and chaos? No. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sam Burge The future of Iraq is rather sketchy. I believe at this point in time we can not pull out as another dictator will take over and we will have to go back in and look for “wmd” cough, cough. Although I did not agree with us getting involved in the first place, we have benefited Iraq in some ways. We got rid of a dictator and have tried to help them rebuild their country. And I think our presence is needed still. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ben Salisbury I think the future for Iraq is quite dismal at the moment, as we seem to be making no progress and have made very little since when we first invaded Iraq. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kirsty Hayford I think Iraq will become a peaceful place to live and there won’t be any more wars with us and them as we will become friends. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Binns, It is important for us to realise that we are no longer a super power. We are only a small nation compared to the rest of the world. We need the support of the European Union and the United Nations; neither agreed with the Iraq Invasion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mathieu Leader I think that Iraq should be monitored by the UN Security Council in the future. But I think it’ll be ok in a decade and they will have a stable economic and political future. I would support an invasion of another country, but only if men, women and children in that country were suffering. |
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