Posted on 07/06/2009 9:16:51 PM PDT by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Baghdad and other key cities in Iraq marks the beginning of the end of the tragic war there.
While it’s not over yet, the Iraqis are celebrating and happy -- free at last from American control.
Well, almost.
We have had six-and-one-half years of the on-going conflict, with American war dead totaling 4,320 and more than 31,000 wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqis also were killed and thousands more wounded.
Add some 4 million refugees to those formidable numbers of human cost.
Then there is the small matter of an estimated $682 billion as the financial cost of the war, which is still costing about $1 billion a week. Have we seen former President George W. Bush’s 2003 banner "Mission Accomplished" finally come true? Not quite.
None of the American officials who sold us this disastrous war are in the dock, though maybe they should be. The falsehoods they told to justify this tragic invasion stressed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. This was false.
The neo-conservatives who plotted and masterminded the war have faded into safe havens -- universities and right-wing think tanks -- and are free to make mischief another day.
Was it worth the losses, the pain, the sorrow of families, the fatherless children, the disabled and mentally disturbed veterans -- for a war waged on the basis of wrong information?
The damage to our reputation as a peace-loving people is incalculable. Our reputation was further sullied by the torturing of prisoners and the detention of hundreds of captives who were never charged, tried or convicted.
The U.S. has violated international laws on several scores, to our shame. The federal government also violated U.S. law by spying on Americans with warrantless wiretaps, all in the name of national security.
Are we leaving the Iraqis able to take care of themselves or are they worse off? The answer is that their 5,000-year-old civilization has survived modern imperial Western colonialism and will manage somehow.
To this day, the American people have not been given an honest answer about what prompted Bush to go to war in the turbulent Middle East. After the Sept. 11 catastrophes, it was anything goes.
The American people were hoodwinked into a war with Iraq that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on the U.S. That apparently didn’t matter to Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney or the hawkish advisers who used those attacks as a springboard to invade Iraq.
Since they have had to pay a high price, the American people deserve to know the truth of why Bush thought he needed a war. Under the U.S. agreement with Iraq, the U.S. has promised to remove all troops by 2011. Currently there are 130,000 American forces on hand.
President Barack Obama should take heed of our inglorious failures and the great sacrifices in Vietnam and Iraq before he ups the ante in Afghanistan.
Wow...worst one ever.
Yoo-hoo, Helen Thomas ping list members! FReepmail me if you'd like to be added to the list. It's the best way to keep up on all the latest doings of FR's favorite newsbabe!
Yes, it's been hell compared to the bliss of Saddam. Stupid America-hating b*tch.
We had a brief moment when she beat up on Gibbs the other day. She’s back to her old self now...
angry old Arab woman
I actually feel better when I don’t agree with her. Scary to have agreed with her last week.
.............. Helen Thomas, 1932
Ya know, sometimes a Burka isn’t a bad idea.
I know you warned of graphic images, I just wasn’t expecting a nauseatingly LIFE-SIZED photo. I hope I can scrounge up a Pepcid (even if it’s crunched up at the bottom of my purse and covered with bits of dirt and lint).
Sure you don’t mean “1832”?
Helen Thomas is a disgusting lying apologist for the genocidal dictator Saddam Hussein who is wrongly blaming the US for all the damage done by Muslim jihadis in Iraq. The Iraq War is not nearly the disaster Thomas’s face is, no matter how you look at it. Mission Accomplished, Thomas. How about you stop lying about it and deal with it.
lol
What about Libya giving up its nuclear weapons program, Helen? Direct result of the war - any response? One less psycho nuclear power in the middle east, throw in Iraq, which would have had their nukes by now and that is two less in the world.
We’ll see how boy wonder does with Iran.
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