This assignment has strengthened and given support to my stance against the war in Iraq. Up until maybe a few weeks ago, I was in a kind of limbo with regard to my opinion on the Iraq situation. I was fairly uninformed "sometime after September 11th, 2001 (and to an extent, even after the 2000 elections), I gave up on most forms of media, but I still had radios and televisions and computers and magazines around. When I came to college, I somehow entered this void in which there remains only my computer and a news website in my "Favorites- list. I had a special disregard for the politics with Iraq. For some reason, unknown to me anymore, I stayed relatively undecided (you believe it's not possible, but it really is) with perhaps some favor toward the anti-war perspective. I didn't know "yes, I presumed we were being the bullies here, but maybe I was better off if we had a war. Certainly it would be convenient to be rid of Sadaam Hussein. I had this suspicion that somehow the arguments in favor of use of military force could be argued with, but I had no idea how that was. By the time this assignment was given, I had decided that I at least knew that the justification being given to us for this war was false, and I decided to research this topic to obtain more knowledge. What this assignment has given me is a better strength to my opinion through equipping it with better information. Where once I didn't know how to sort out the verity of all the arguments, I feel I can now do so at a level that satisfies at least myself, if not perhaps at a level to convince somebody else (say, a pro-war friend). Where I didn't know what questions to ask myself at the beginning of my research, I feel I can now identify my concerns as the situation in Iraq, in our country, and in the rest of the world progresses.
The biggest insight I have been given is into the character of the United States government, both in its current administration, and in its past.
