Chan Lowe: End of the Iraq War III
There were some who argued that the government should have imposed rationing of fuel, foods and consumer goods, as we did in World War II. Not because we needed to, but just to be a constant reminder that there was a war on.
It was somehow unseemly that people blithely gassed up their gargantuan SUVs while our troops were fighting in the oil fields. But the Bush administration felt that the best way to keep Americans from getting in the way of executing the strategy (whatever it was) was to keep the war below the radar. The American people, above all, should not suffer privation. Privation costs votes.
The immense financial cost was incurred off the books to be reckoned with at some future date, so Congress didn’t have to wrangle publicly over financing. The fighting and dying was done by a volunteer military and paid contractors, so the casualties only affected a relatively small slice of society. The bodies were brought home under a shroud of secrecy with the excuse that the families’ privacy needed to be respected.
So now the last convoy of troops has trickled out of Iraq, nothing like the “Shock and Awe” opening act of this war. If the regime we’ve left behind fails, a few stalwarts will gnash their teeth and declare that Obama “lost” Iraq. The rest of us will just sigh in relief that it’s over.
CHAN LOWE has been the Sun Sentinel’s first and only editorial cartoonist for the past twenty-six years. Before that, he worked as cartoonist and writer for the Oklahoma City Times and the Shawnee (OK) News-Star.
Comments
Yeah Chan...America Pauses To Reflect....It's ho-hum time regarding a war ending in Iraq....and anyone who believes that, raise your hands..!
No hands raised.? Guess they're too busy twitting & texting....
I went back to the link you had in the blog.."U.S. Combat Troops Leave Iraq"...(Aug.19th.2010) I wrote a very long comment, & one other person wrote a single sentence..That was it...
Hmm..Do you suppose it would be different if we would have had a draft.?
Like Nam.? Hmm....
Posted by: Lorraine Wagner | December 22, 2011 1:20 PM