Yay!! We won!! Well, we would have…if only someone could have clearly elucidated exactly what “winning” means. We’re leaving Iraq…correction, we’re being kicked out of Iraq by the Iraqi government under the Status of Farces Agreement signed by George W. Bush in 2008 (Remember the shoe-throwing press conference?). After eight-plus years of war, all that can really be said is that Saddam Hussein (and close to 5,000 American soldiers and contractors) is dead. It would be great to be able to indulge in some chest-thumping, but the reality is that we’ve achieved nothing resembling victory. Sure, we’ve spent billions (with trillions more in costs to the American economy), we suffered thousands of casualties…but what, really, have we “won”? How is Iraq anything but this generation’s Vietnam?
Thousands of American servicemen and women have returned from Iraq damaged, some permanently. If there were concrete identifiable gains that could be identified as resulting from our involvement in Iraq, then perhaps there might (and I emphasize “might”) be some tangible, identifiable benefit to America. As much as I understand that I run the risk of being called a “traitor” or “un-American” for stating what seems blindingly obvious to me, the war in Iraq was a waste- of American blood, treasure, and moral standing. It was a war purchased under false pretenses (or “lies”, more accurately), conducted to justify the dishonesty, and packaged, marketed, and sold to the American Sheeple through skillful and pervasive propaganda and disinformation.
Five thousand dead and 30,000 wounded later, and Mission Accomplished. Great…so what was the mission?
Our sons and daughters were killed, maimed, and scarred by a war we had no business fighting to begin with. Iraq wasn’tt a threat, and it had never been a threat, to American security. What continues to amaze and depress me is that it’s no stretch to refer to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and those in their Administration responsible for the lies, the propaganda, and the immoral war in Iraq as “war criminals.” These mass murderers, and it’s no exaggeration to refer to them as such, as responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis…and thousands of Americans who followed orders to their senseless, pointless deaths. Bush and Cheney, et. al. should be in a docket at a war crimes trial in The Hague instead of making thousands on their post-White House speaking engagements and being revered by the Right as heroes.
There’s no explanation for why the Obama Administration lacks the moral courage to do the right thing and arrest Bush and Cheney…but it will never happen. Meanwhile, the families of those Americans who returned home in flag-draped boxes are left to wonder just what might have been and what was gained by the senseless death of their loved ones. In retrospect, it seems nothing was gained, and those responsible will never be held to account.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
