mikao's world

in response to "awake and dreaming"

in response to my post awake and dreaming a few days ago, ian commented the following:

"How different would you see it if you were living under the Iraqi government? How much more supportive would you be if the media showed pictures of the rape and torture rooms? If you'd seen fifty thousand Kurds murdered with chemical weapons would you be more supportive of the war?"

i started to write some comments back but decided to post them here as they were getting a little long, and i think it's an important post:

"thank you for your comments ian. i was wondering if anyone would say anything.

i think that in general me and my fellow canadian peers think differently about war. even though we are so very close geographically we have a completely different outlook. i've seen american peers here at school getting upset over some canadian's insensitive reactions to the war.

we aren't educated in the same way about war. we don't have brothers or sisters going off to fight for someone else's or our own freedom. we don't have a government supportive of war unless the world (i.e. the UN) decides to be.

we don't have have such strong opinions. we don't quite know what to think. it's not directly affecting us as individuals or our "world".

but we all have valid opinions. i don't understand war. i don't understand even one one-hundredth of a percent of what is going on over in iraq or why the usa has decided to go to war. i don't understand why innocent people are getting killed. i want justice, but i want justice without innocent bloodshed.

but, as fallible men, we haven't figured out how to right wrongs without it."