So our long national nightmare of a war in Iraq is finally over. So what did it accomplish? Almost 5000 American troops dead, scores wounded and disabled, most of them permanently, and priceless treasures from the dawn of civilization looted, gone and probably lost forever (and some doubtless got melted down and used for weapons), a country still torn by sectarian strife that will probably last forever, since they stem from old tribal and religious hatreds going back hundreds of years that will never be solved but by more bloodshed, and of course, trillions of dollars wasted, and billions of dollars that vanished, unaccounted for, nearly bankrupting this country while we took our eyes off the ball in the AfPak region that is also drenched in decades of unending war and bloodshed. It's all such a sad waste of time, money, treasure and blood. Who knows how many tens of thousands of Iraqis were slaughtered during this useless war, and many, many more have been left to become permanent refugees with no chance of ever setting foot in the US because of where they come from. I wonder why nobody has ever been held to account for this whole mess, lying us into such a costly and unjust war. Anybody with half a brain knew that this was not a war we needed to fight and once in, we'd have one hell of a difficult time extracting ourselves from that war torn and corrupt country. It got to where we as a country had a tiger by the tail: we couldn't leave but we couldn't stay, so...we chose to leave and we have to hope that neighboring Iran doesn't invade, seeing a weakened country ripe for the picking. Iraq can hardly be called a stable and peaceful country ready to govern itself, but the reason we're leaving now is because President Obama promised we'd leave if he got elected and he's facing re-election this coming year, so in order to get re-elected, he sort of had to get us the hell out of there. It's going to be interesting to see what happens now that the last of our troops is gone from there. In the meantime, we're bogged down in Afghanistan, for centuries known as the "Graveyard of Empires". We can't really leave there, either, but we can't stay there, either, so it's another tiger by the tail. The US is way too good at this sort of thing, so young men and women will continue to be killed there and come home in body bags to grieving families who have to bury young men and women in the prime of their lives.
It's all so sad to hear of someone in their late teens or early 20s being cut down in war and leaving behind grieving relatives, especially when we are fighting an ideology, not a state. Many of the kids being killed over in those desert sands of the Middle East only joined the military to pay for college because it's prohibitively expensive anymore to attend, so they signed up with the hopes of being weekend warriors, reservists, so they could attend school during the week, but then found their platoon or regiment or brigade being deployed to a war zone, In fact, the lion's share of those who have fought these wars are reservists, National Guard units from various states made up of kids who were trying to pay for college by joining the reserves. That's what makes it all so sad, the fact that it's been our weekend warriors who've paid the heaviest price in the past decade, being deployed and killed in record numbers. National Guard soldiers have no business fighting wars. That is not their function. Their primary role is domestic security, not going off to fight insurgents in the desert sands of the Middle East.Well, at least one war we should never have fought is over. Now it's time to end all of our wars, bring our troops home and do some serious nation building at home. We have a crumbling infrastructure to update and repair and jobs to create. We can't afford to to that AND fight wars in far off places. It's got to be one or the other, but we haven't the resources for both. In a choice between guns and butter, we need to choose butter, and choose it now.
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