If you’ve ever driven through downtown DeKalb on Friday afternoon, you’ve probably seen some protestors – there every week for the last four years. They have a single message; not necessarily effective, but morally justified: stop the war.

As Congress considers the possibility of pulling out of Iraq, opponents say pulling out would be a mistake, but a bigger mistake may be trying to solve the world’s problems.

In fact, this is how Iraq’s problems started. Journalism professor Orayb Najjar, who studied in Beirut before coming to NIU, said most of the problems in the Middle East began when the British created borders that did not previously exist.

One of these countries was Iraq, a republic where three hostile ethnic groups were put into one sandbox and told to play nice. The British mandate failed to take into account the 5,000-year-old Middle Eastern tradition of warring over scarce resources that continues today.

“The only thing that both sides agree upon is that they want us out,” said DeKalb resident Cecile Meyer.

Lolly Voss, another DeKalb resident who stands with Meyer at First Street and Lincoln Highway on Fridays, believes the situation is similar to the American Revolution. She said we didn’t like being occupied, either.

In fact, most countries don’t like even being invaded. The United Nations was created for the eventual purpose of ending wars, employing peacekeeping operations around the world, including in Cyprus, where with their help the Greeks and Turks coexist instead of killing each other.

Although some would argue the U.N. is a failure, U.N. involvement does operate as the international community; U.S. involvement does not. U.N. troops only enter a region when both sides approve, while the U.S. lingers in Iraq despite opposition from both Sunnis and Shiites.

U.N. involvement would allow the Iraqi people to recreate their own country, and possibly undo the damage of the British mandate; the American effort attempts to preserve the faulty British mandate for all time in the interest of America, not in the interest of the Iraqi people.

This is the problem; it is not our military’s responsibility to clean up the world’s problems and enforce international agreement. That responsibility belongs to the United Nations, a body which carries international legitimacy, something America does not.

This cause keeps protestors along First Street, waiting for the Friday they won’t have to hold signs that say to end the war. As one of them, Sycamore resident Jenny Tomkins said last Friday that she will continue to stand and support the troops and America, but she does not support the war, a stance she will take no matter how ineffective it may be, because it is the right thing to do.

“Planet earth,” she said. “That’s who we care about.”