The Iraq War effectively will be over in two months. Nearly 4,500 American servicemen and women were killed. When you consider closed-brain injuries, possibly well over a hundred thousand were wounded. $800 billion spent so far and the when long-term costs are factored in, this little war will have cost three trillion dollars.
That enumeration, of course, does not count the thousand-plus Americans who were killed while working as everything from trigger-happy mercs to truck drivers. It doesn't include the well over one hundred thousand Iraqis who were killed or the millions who were turned into refugees. For none of that ever mattered a whit to the neo-con chickenhawks.
The whimpering, of course, is coming from Republicans, who wanted President Obama to abrogate Status of Forces Agreement that President Bush signed, which set the withdrawal date. They apparently and oh-so-conveniently forgot that Bush tried to get the Iraqis agree to an open-ended agreement and the Iraqis balked.
Only now has it begun to sink into those addlepated fools that this war removed a regional counterweight to Iran. At a time when American officials flew into Iraq in total secrecy and moved about the country by helicopter, the president of Iran made a well publicized state visit and was driven by motorcade down the "highway of death" to the Green Zone in perfect safety. Even if the Iran-supported Shi'as running the Iraqi government disagreed with Iran, Iraq does not have the military force to counter an invasion force that is much stronger than a battalion of NYPD cops.
Let's sum up what was accomplished by Bush's war: The United States spent (or is on the hook for) three trillion dollars. The U.S. acquired a global reputation as a practitioner of torture, sham trials, long detentions without any sort of due process, and a willingness to throw away its core principles without shame or any sense of hypocrisy. Iran is now the regional heavyweight in the Persian Gulf region.
Mission accomplished, Chimpy.
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5 comments:
A perfect reflection.
Naw, the bill won't be that high. Cuz those bastard neo-cons will drop funding for the vets...
They love war and our soldiers, yet despise our veterans.
After the first of the year the real war will start. Shia with Iran, Sunni with Saudi, and the Kurds will probably side with the Shia.
It will be a nasty little affair, like all civil wars are.
It will be a race for the Jordain border border for the Sunni, since the Shia set between them and Kuwait, not that Kuwait will want them, they have their own problems.
If it looks like the Shia are going to take the field, expect the Saudi to pressure the United States to reintroduce ground forces.
Thank you shrub
I was kind of thinking that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing, good for the people of Iraq anyway. But do people get the government they deserve? In any case, seems like civil war is the order of the day for a whole bunch of places this week.
Iraq had a parliamentary election nearly two years ago and they have not been able to form a government. In Libya and Tunisia, the dictators eviscerated every possible organization. The resulting disputes over who does what are now up to the locals, who have little, if any, experience in running anything by democratic principles.
What they have, especially in Iraq and Libya, are a lot of weapons. I expect things to be settled in all those nations by a series of bloody civil wars.
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