U.S. military forces, minus 50,000 “non-combat” troops, will have completely withdrawn from Iraq today.
The battle’s over, for now.
But where’s the victory party located? Is it in Times Square again?
Will the boys in uniform be parading in the streets while ladies swoon on the sidelines and confetti falls like rain? Will today be given a memorable name like V-I (Victory in Iraq) Day?
Simply put, no.
The only parties will be held in the White House and on Wall Street, with the men who truly run this country as its only attendees, celebrating the privatized wealth generated by this whole atrocity.
Since the war of — I mean “war on” — terror started, many Americans have asked, “Why are we fighting in Iraq?”
And as public opinion came to mirror the negativity expressed
during the Vietnam War, it’s an honest question that warrants an honest answer.
We lost 4,500 soldiers in Iraq, with another 32,000 wounded in action.
If those numbers don’t shock you, then perhaps the more than 1 million Iraqi deaths will.
Still not upset over the war our government has unjustly imposed on the world?
Consider this: The cost of the Iraqi war will total around $1 trillion. The American economy is out about $3 trillion.
The significance of these figures is quite real. Many people died, and loads of money were wasted — perhaps for no reason.
Saddam Hussein, the great enemy of the Bush family, was removed from office and quickly executed. And while the impetus for invading Iraq was to seize its weapons of mass destruction, none were ever found. And once that ship had sailed, the focus was put on Hussein’s supposed harboring of al-Qaida, much like the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But this was never found to be true in Iraq, most notably by the Pentagon’s Institute for Defense Analyses.
Essentially, our government thought it proper to invade a Middle Eastern country with “shock and awe” to eliminate the threat of terrorism — which never existed there. In actuality, jihad-based terrorist attacks have increased sevenfold since the 2003 invasion.
Furthermore, the supposed connection between Iraq’s Ba’athist government and the Sept. 11 attacks turned out to be — you guessed it — erroneous on all accounts.
And the only observable aftermath, aside from Iraqi and American graves, is a country in ruins, imposed with an unstable democratic government and 94 U.S. military bases. Of these 94, 12 are considered large scale — and all of them are going to remain operative.
Does this sound like imperialism to anyone else?
But how could the government gain support for such a plan?
It’s not so different from the events that spurred world wars I and II. The sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin incident each have elements of “something doesn’t feel right here” — as if our own government had a hand in them.
And, as expected, gaining support for the post-Sept. 11 wars wasn’t too difficult for our leaders. I’ll admit, after the Sept. 11 attacks, even I was ready to put a boot in someone’s ass, as Toby Keith said.
But, now that I’ve come out of my Sept. 11 fit of rage, I realize most of our actions attempting to bring retribution for the Sept. 11 attacks had little to no effect. If anything, our own government had more to do with Sept. 11 than Iraq.
Now that the dust created by the fear of terrorism has settled, can we continue look at this debacle of a war, much like our role in Afghanistan, and see it as a positive thing? I think not.
The U.S. has now closed a chapter in its infamous book of “the war on (insert here),” with success ratings paralleling the war on drugs, the war on poverty and others — which have all failed.
I suppose, for now, all we can hope for is a better turnout when we invade Iran in the near future.
Andrew Robertson is a 23-year-old English writing and culture senior from Baton Rouge. You can follow him on Twitter
@TDR_arobertson.
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Contact Andrew Robertson at [email protected]