“At 3:53 am August 19, 2010, Baghdad Time, the last American combat troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait and the gates behind the convoy closed.”
While 50K Troops remain, this at least partially closes the door on one of the saddest chapters of American history. However, no one in the ‘Media’ has really cared about the Iraq War since 2004. I wouldn’t expect them to spend much time on this either. The important thing is to apparently debate a manufactured issue on whether First Amendment Rights should be extended to Muslim Americans. That’s really bringing out the best in people. We’ve come a long way.
This does not include the 10,000′s of innocent civilians and allied forces killed and wounded.
Next time we have a leader itching to invade some fucking sandbox, I hope people will remember this nonsense.
1. An administration uses a national tragedy, alarmist rhetoric, and manufactured (false) evidence to build a case for invading a country that had nothing to do with said tragedy.
2. After some photo ops, the American Media packs it in. The Government saves our eyes by not allowing dead soldiers to be shown on tv. Instead we get Deal Or No Deal. People yawn and get fatter.
3. In the Muslim World, the Invasion of Iraq becomes biggest reason for anti-American sentiment (more than support for Israel, regional military bases, etc..). A great brochure for the manipulative psychos to lure alienated youth to the lucrative sexual after-life career of suicide bombing!
4. $$Trillions$$ pissed away, with (mental + physical) medical costs just beginning. Much of this money went to multi-national-tax-evading-corporations with strong ties to the loudest chickenhawks.
Surely, this doesn’t mean the end of tragedy in Iraq. More troops will die. Iraqis still have less access to clean water and electricity than they did under Saddam. It will probably continue to become a hotbed of extremism. There will be a lot more bad before there’s much good. Maybe it’s just the end of quite a self-destructive ‘bender.’
To all those who have served and remain serving, I thank you. And I’m sorry.
Sad. I extend my deepest gratitude to those who lost their lives, those who were mentally and physically wounded and those who serve and still serve.
This war was ill conceived and preyed upon Americans’ vulnerability, anger, pain and trust in our leaders in the wake of the Sept 11th terrorist attacks. The group of small and weak minded people (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perl and Bush) who created this war committed the gravest of treasonous acts – they lied the country into war. These people should be reminded, every day, of the sons and daughters they so callously took from their families and put in harm’s way. All of it in the service of some frat boys playing Risk with real American lives. We can only honor those heroes who served by promising, as Americans, to never again let us go to war without clear, just cause.
We also have to look at ourselves who did nothing, or not enough, to stop our elected leaders from perpetrating this war.
“Nowhere have I seen such Lions led by such Lambs.”
well-said.
Sadly, the sociopaths you mentioned couldn’t care less about the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dead, maimed, or psychologically damaged soldiers and civilians that they are directly responsible for. If they did, I doubt they would have started a war with no clear objective for no good reason other than to pad their buddies’ bank accounts. And the saddest part of all is that many people in this country are dying to put these kinds of people back in power – as if plunging our country into massive deficits by transferring taxpayer dollars directly to Blackwater and Halliburton and killing a bunch of people is better than those damn socialist hippies who want to waste money on things like health care.