It was a surprisingly warm March day when I stood before my fellow students and delivered my speech on why the United States should invade Iraq. We had not invaded just yet but war seemed imminent and to celebrate the impeding war my high school English teacher had each of us write out a quick speech to express our opinions on whether or not we should invade. After to twenty some students stood up and defend the probable war in Iraq for our own personal democracy and, of course, to find those WMD's and hearing only one other student reject Bush's reasons for war, my turn finally came in the waning minutes of the school day. "It was all a farce," I said, "how can we pretend that we are going in to find WMD's while North Korea has admitted to researching nuclear weapons and expressed the desire to develop missiles that could reach California? How come U.N. weapon inspectors are not good enough? How can we claim to be defenders of Democracy when we have wiped out several democracies in Latin America?  How can we talk of human rights violations Iraq but refuse to take action against the long list of Chinese human rights violations?" On and on I went attacking every premise for the war I could within a few minutes. At the end I even received some applauds, not a thunderous standing ovation but enough to make me know that my speech had some weight.

Then those few days passed and Gen. Tommy Franks led our troops into battle. They would ignore the Iraqi cities and instead nestle themselves into the oil fields, while civilians were dying President Bush showed his true ambitions to protect Iraq's vast oil wealth. The Iraqi army was defeated and Saddam was captured, all was well and Bush declared an end of major combat operations. The Bush regime didn't seem to comprehend that they had just invaded a broken nation in what is arguably the world's most volatile region. They brushed aside cooperation from the Iranian government, they failed to placate the skeptical Iraqi people and closed their eyes to the ensuing chaos in Iraq, simply assuming that the Iraqi's would welcome American occupation and subjugation with open arms. They were wrong, and now five years later the war is still raging with no peaceful end in sight.

It was in those very first few minutes of the invasion that my opinions changed. Well they didn't change really, I still view Bush's initiation of the war as criminal today as I did all those years ago and I will gladly sign the dotted line on any petition seeking his persecution, but I became committed to the war.

 I do not believe that we should pull out of the war, at least not until we weigh in the consequences of what such a pull out would entail. Our international image is destroyed, but pulling out will do little to improve it, indeed if conditions in Iraq deteriorate we will look even worse in the eyes of the international community. Sadly more lives will be spent, but if we leave before the job is done will those 4,000 dead soldiers have been wasted in vain?

In the end, however, the main reason I do no support pulling out, at least without further study, is the welfare of the people of Iraq. I cannot help but think that if we pull out now Iraq will descend into anarchy, and I fear that in the end a radical and suppressive regime like the Taliban could come to rule Iraq. Our invasion of Iraq has caused an influx of radicals, and the hard times have brought about the popularity of radical leaders that might end up suppressing the Iraqi population if they gain control. What if women in Iraq are denied healthcare as women under the Taliban? What if women are abused for not wearing the proper clothes or appearing in public without a male chaperone? Now do not mistake me as saying this WILL happen, Iraq is a vastly different place in a much different location with many different circumstances, however certain conditions have been brought about by our folly of an invasion that would make the rise of a radical regime possible. And then we will have another Afghanistan were the common people are suppressed and radicals are trained.