Chan Lowe | Sun-Sentinel Blogs

There are several tragedies playing out as the Iraq war winds down. Well, as it winds down for us.

The first tragedy is the incredible loss of human life suffered on all sides.

Then, there's the tragedy of a great nation allowing itself to get bamboozled into a needless conflict, siphoning off its strength into a sand pit while the real threat lay elsewhere. Since there were no WMD, one is left to wonder as to the true reason. Maybe it really was "he tried to kill my daddy." Couldn't Bush, Rummy and Cheney have simply sent in a black-ops assassination squad to deal with that?

Not only did we spend gazillions and lose over 4,000 of our military (not to mention all the wounded), but we're leaving the place worse off for the average local than it was before, Saddam or no Saddam. Not to mention that Al Qaida is now a presence there.

Of course, all this is relegated to the inner pages now, because we're disengaging and the casualty level--that is, the American casualty level--is now negligible. Not for the Iraqis, of course, but we all know that Iraqi blood doesn't spur the kind of interest, ire or compassion that American blood does. Let' em cancel each other out, right?

Then, there's the loss to us of all the schools, hospitals, roads--you name it--that could have been built here in America with that money. There's all that debt our grandchildren wouldn't be saddled with.

And let's not forget how easily the American public and Congress were played. That's a moral tragedy we can all share the blame for. Except for those knee-jerk, unpatriotic war protesters. Remember them?

Comments

If you had ever done a tour or 2 in Iraqi , you would know that you are wrong , the health care , schools ,young women , Kurdish area and utilities for the common people are exponentially better.

Posted by: pallidin | August 21, 2009 7:38 AM

There's no need to "wonder as to the true reason." We can see what they did, and, given the total control they had and the fact that no one was punished for mistakes (other than people like Ambassador Wilson who tried to expose the lies) and in fact many were promoted, we can assume it's what they intended to do. They killed a thug whom they had helped put in power but who later disobeyed them, and they destroyed his nation, as a Mafia-style warning to other nations considering disobedience. And they opened the door for American companies to pump and sell the oil of Iraq, and they set up 14 permanent military bases along the border with Iran, another major oil producer as well as being the only nation besides Russia which borders the oil-rich Caspian Sea and also has an ocean port. Mission accomplished.

Posted by: jan | August 21, 2009 2:08 PM

So jan, how about we open up OUR OWN fields in Alaska and offshore here in FL.

There is enough crude there to keep America running untill we can find/exploit other options.

Or are you one of the tree huggers who buy gas, yell NO ALASKAN DRILLING, and still cry about buying oil from forigen sources while you drive around?

Posted by: I Say | August 23, 2009 7:16 PM

... and they returned Iraq to the dollar standard for oil sales. That's actually the first thing they did after the invasion. Saddam's most egregious act of disobedience, from their point of view, was switching from dollars to Euros in the fall of 2000. That was the beginning of the revolt against dollar hegemony, later expanded by Iran's plan for an open-currency bourse, and discussed but not acted on by Hugo Chavez when, as president of OPEC, he suggested changing from dollars to euros for all OPEC sales.

Posted by: jan | August 25, 2009 10:39 PM