Iraq Occupation - 4 Years Later

It has been four years since President Bush decided to start his brazened invasion of Iraq.  $400 billion, 3,100 American casualties, over 600,000 dead Iraqis, and over 2 million refugees later, our commander and chief has still the audacity to stand in front of the world and to continue to ask for our support. 

20,000 more troops will be heading into this quagmire soon.  Their mission is to stop the insurgency, terrorism, and the sectarian genocide that this war has directly created and is ultimately responsible for. 

The current living conditions in Iraq are appalling. The poverty, disease, and deplorable living conditions are the bequests of this president whose political myopia and lack of moral decency know no boundaries.  Lest we forgot, he and his administration first told us that Saddam as an imminent threat to the US.  Once we invaded and found no WMD’s, the pretext for the war shamelessly shifted to a more noble cause, spreading democracy.  To this day, the reason is still changing according to the needs of the White House PR machine and the message it tries to sell.

Why did we invade Iraq? Contrary to popular belief it’s not because of the messianic instincts of an incompetent president who believes that foreign policy is an expression of God’s will.  And it is surely not because this government has suddenly discovered a moralistic call to democratize a tribal Middle East. The three reasons were to protect and strengthen the state of Israel, to turn Iraq from a centrally planned to an oil based market economy, and to stave off any attempt by China or India to have the geopolitical upper hand in that region.

So where does this leave us today?  The surge has temporarily quieted down the Shiites while the US troops are ‘taking care’ of the Sunni insurgents. We are told that this new strategy is different than all others and if we stand behind it and give it time it will eventually succeed.  The big test will come when the US forces are deployed out of Iraq. What will happen then?  In the absence of a politically comprehensive plan to unite Sunnis and Shiites and in the absence of an Iraqi army force to keep the peace, this diplomatic atrocity and human morass will only worsen.  But who knows, maybe by then this administration would have led us into a war with neighboring Iran.  Thus giving this monster a second head.

Many of us have come to term with Mr. Bush’s limitless ignorance and with his presidential hubris.  What remains unconscionable is his belief that he remains the only and ‘ultimate decider’. Even if we pretend to fight for Democracy abroad, we need to have the moral decency to abide by its precepts within this country first.