"Pride! Honor! Glory! Team Spirit!" screams out the display board for the army recruitment drive.

"Have you thought about joining the army. Sir?" asks a beefy army man after noticing me staring at the board.

"I'm a pacifist" I blurt out before even my mind could think of a reply. Does this army man realize that all he is, is nothing but a pawn in the high stakes game that politicians play? Doesn't he realize that his life was forfeited the moment he enlisted to serve? Doesn't he realize that he's sending thousands of young men to die in a war that shouldn't have happened, but did because of one man's ambitions?

If we were to analyze the information available to us, the reason to invade Iraq is as clear as glass, Oil. The fact that neither the army nor the CIA was able to find any Weapons of Mass Destruction does prove this fact. If so, wouldn't our forces in Egypt be an occupying army rather than liberators? To argue that the war in Iraq was to free the masses from Saddam's despotic power rule is another option. If so, shouldn't we have helped out the countries in the African continent where people die by the thousands because of violence, disease and famine?

Overthrowing Saddam was a strategic move by the U.S. government to hide their real intentions and also gain support of the masses by gaining the moral high ground. All we have achieved so far in Iraq is that we managed to upset the fragile peace that Saddam had enforced in Iraq; the death rate in Iraq has increased since Saddam's fall.

We did gain control over Iraq's oil fields and we will be able to drive around in our oil guzzling Jeep's and SUV's at the price of $4.05/ gallon At the cost of the lives of thousands of innocents, both military and civilian. Is it worth it? I think not. Power corrupts and people in positions of authority will always end up stepping on the masses. I'm no anarchist, for I realize governments are a necessary evil; we, human beings as a race, are not mature enough to govern ourselves. I'm just concerned about the innocents we sacrifice at the altar of this evil.

As if sensing another possible candidate the army man turns away from me and spouts out the same line at another student. With all these thoughts buzzing in my head, I hastily walk away from the army man's rude dismissal.

Would it have changed anything if I shared my views with him? In the end he remains a pawn and I disappear into the throng of students, hating myself and my inability to fully express myself to change anything.