15 Years. More Than 1 Million Dead. No One Held Responsible

[G_j]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19547603/iraq-15-years-george-bush/

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE MAR 21, 2018

The most tragic and infuriating piece of writing of the week came in Tuesday’s New York Times. It carried a very plain and simple headline.

"Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country"

My short visit only confirmed my conviction and fear that the invasion would spell disaster for Iraqis. Removing Saddam was just a byproduct of another objective: dismantling the Iraqi state and its institutions. That state was replaced with a dysfunctional and corrupt semi-state. We were still filming in Baghdad when L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, announced the formation of the so-called Governing Council in July 2003. The names of its members were each followed by their sect and ethnicity. Many of the Iraqis we spoke to on that day were upset with institutionalization of an ethno-sectarian quota system. Ethnic and sectarian tensions already existed, but their translation into political currency was toxic. Those unsavry characters on the governing council, most of whom were allies of the United States from the preceding decade, went on to loot the country, making it one of the most corrupt in the world.

..more..

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[Eyeball_Kid]

2. And now, here comes another effort at "regime change." This time it's Iran.

More chaos, more genocide, more mass murder, more killing of civilians. And what does Trumpy want? He wants a terrorist organization, MEK, to assume the reigns of leadership in Iran. This effort will be a monumental disaster. Most people know it, yet NO ONE, especially those in the GOP, is willing to stand up and say, NO.

[Initech]

19. We'd be walking into a trap going into Iran.

The powers that be want this war to happen and they have been beating this drum for as long as I have been alive. But anyone can tell you that this is a terrible idea all the way around. In addition to the amount of lives lost, we'd be there decades and it would cost trillions, but profits are more important than lives, apparently.

[liberalmuse]

3. A country that does this.

Deserves a hard reckoning, and it is coming. We haven’t seen anything yet.

[Turbineguy]

16. Like Russia

putting trump in charge?

We can't really lay that completely at Putin's door. The GOP, Fox News and the idiots who voted them in made it work.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Especially the willfully ignorant idiots that voted for him.

[Voltaire2]

4. Lesson learned. Or not.

We then proceeded to destroy Libya, and as that was such a grand success we did our best to wreck Syria.

Afghanistan. The war the will never end.

[Ferrets are Cool]

5. The war criminals are strutting around...some of them

(cheney) still shouting out vile statements about TORTURE. All of them who lied us into that oil grab and murder of 100's of thousands of men, women and children should be in jail rotting.

"A survey published in January 2008, conducted in August and September 2007 by Opinion Research Business, a British polling firm, in conjunction with Iraq’s Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies found that about 20% of households surveyed had lost at least one member, and estimated that 1.03 million people had died in the war with a 95% certainty for a number of deaths between 946,000 and 1.12 million.

The deaths of so many men, women and children have had an enormous impact on Iraqi society. According to the Iraqi government,around 4.5 million children have lost one or both parents (almost 1 in 3) and approximately 600 000 children are living on the streets. Child labour has increased with 15% of children under the age of 14 now working. There are now between 1 and 3 million widows in Iraq, many struggling as heads of households and living in extreme poverty."

https://kidsforwarkids.weebly.com/iraq.html

[G_j]

7. Beyond heartbreaking

Crimes against humanity

[RandomAccess]

9. And some of them in critical positions in the current gov

to affect our policies and actions (John Bolton)

[Victor_c3]

13. Another major American "victory"

The birth defect rate in Fallujah is higher now than it was. The same amount of time after we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.



That certainly is something we should be proud of!

[hibbing]

22. The corporate mediaseeks them out for comment

Condi, Dick and others are invited on the shows as expert commentators. At least Colin has slithered off to just being on boards of directors and other gigs. Of course this is nothing new, look at the decades the esteemed Dr. Kissinger has been turned to.

Peace

[malaise]

6. K & R

and yet if you listen to the narrative you'd believe the Muslims are the murderers

[erronis]

14. Excellent point. It's in the eyes of the beholder, and how "personal" the killing is.

[Duppers]

8. K & R

[Martin Eden]

10. "George W. Bush should have spent the day in the stocks"

That would be getting off far too easy. The day Bush left office I wrote the poem below for what I'd like to say to his face.


I'd tell you to go fuck yourself
But that is much too kind
Because if you could perform that feat
You'd take pleasure in your behind

I'd tell you to eat shit and die
But you deserve much more
You should suffer all the grief and pain
Of your misbegotten war

Though I can never make you think
Or feel, or understand
I'll take solace when you hear your name
Cursed throughout the land

From inside a lonely prison cell
Dark and bare and cold
Where every day you pay for your crimes
Until you're sick, heartbroken, and old

When you finally leave the earth
You fucked over oh so well
If there is a God and afterlife
You're going straight to hell

[Victor_c3]

15. I have to agree with that

He gets to sit st his fancy mansion painting all day while guys like me go to that VA and suffer with constant images and issues surrounding our piece of the war.

I joined the army in ‘97 with the idea that I would fight and make the word a better place. I saw what we were doing in the balkans and I completely believed in it. Instead, my service and desire to make the world better was taken advantage of and I was thrown into Iraq with no purpose other than to kill as many Arabs as I could under the guise of “liberation”. American politicians never gave a fuck about that country or it’s citizens.

The final insult is they all sleep fine and cozy in their beds while guys like me suffer with the memories of what we did and saw in their name.

[Martin Eden]

17. I can't imagine what it must have been like

I traveled to our nation's capitol to join 100,000 protesters 4 days before "Shock and Awe" was launched. As we marched, a small group of counter protesters started chanting SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. I joined their chorus but changed it to SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME! Pretty soon others joined me and we drowned them out.

I understand that when you are thrust into the cauldron it is very important for you and your brothers in arms to believe in your mission, from the tactics at hand to why we are there in the first place. At the time I remember reading that 70% of our troops in Iraq believed the invasion of Iraq was justified by 9/11. Some of that may have come down the chain of command, but it definitely started at the top -- Bush did everything he could to conflate Iraq with 9/11 in the public mind.

Did it slowly sink in that you were being taken advantage of in a colossal blunder and a war crime; was it a sudden revelation; or did you think their case for war was bogus before it started?

How many of your brothers in arms still support the war and those who perpetrated it?

[Doodley]

30. A poem I wish he would read! But now he has solace in the fact that he's not as bad as Trump.

[Martin Eden]

33. Dim Son has done more damage

... so far.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread G_j

[Victor_c3]

12. I've been talking about this for years

Every time I said I wasn’t going to give a free-pass to anyone who supported or voted for that war, I got bashed.

I ended up voting for Hillary Clinton only because she was running against a Republican, but I had to swallow my vomit and my ethics in order to do it.

I wouldn’t expect anyone on this forum to be upset over the war and the loss of life associated with it. As soon as it gets pointed out that st. Hillary had anything to do with, I get bashed along with the rest of the Bernie supporters or I’m told that I’m unreasonable to expect every politician to be able to pass my purity test. My purity test is simple: did you or will you ever vote for a bullshit war? That’s it. That’s my biggest question.

I served as an infantryman in Iraq in 2004. I saw and delivered the death our politicians wanted to inflict on the Iraqi people. I get to live with those memories and images haunting me constantly while people like bush, Hillary, and everyone else who ever voted for or supported that war sleeps well at night.

Fuck them and everyone else who ever supported that war yet didn’t pull a trigger and murder an Iraqi.

[Martin Eden]

20. I've never let it go

My one unshakable litmus test is I refuse to vote for anyone in Democratic primaries who supported the 2002 Iraq War Resolution to give GW Bush authority to invade Iraq. This includes Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Kerry. My political heart was almost broken by Kerry, who rose to national prominence as a leader of Vietnam Vets against that tragic senseless war. Our country desperately needed a strong leader to stand up to the lies and for the Constitutional duty of Congress in matters of war. I was following all this very closely at the time, having joined DU a few months earlier. We knew about PNAC and we knew the case for war was bogus and that a vote for the IWR would, without a doubt, result in this war.

Nevertheless, I traveled to Cuyahoga County in Ohio to GOTV for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. I also voted for Hillary in the 2016 general election because like it or not we have only two viable choices and Republicans today are a horror show.

[Ferrets are Cool]

24. I don't understand your statement.

"I wouldn’t expect anyone on this forum to be upset over the war and the loss of life associated with it."

As you can see from my post above...and if you go back to dozens of similar posts, I have been ranting for years about this illegal and immoral war. And I am not alone here.

One other thing. I would NEVER have been a delivery boy for death on the Iraqi people. I would have sat in prison first before I killed innocent people. Rail on me all you want, but it's just the truth.

[BobTheSubgenius]

21. From the vantage point of history, t's hard to imagine what the hawks thought was going to happen...

...would, in fact, happen. Anyone with the slightest grasp of the situation KNEW it would almost certainly end badly, but for it to not even have an end in sight, 15 years in? Worse outcome than I thought possible.

[Orsino]

23. Three presidents, none of whom would end it. n/t

[Demsrule86]

27. To be fair. Once a war begins it is very hard to end it... Consider Vietnam I have seen the

footage of desperate people begging for us not to leave or to go with us...millions died because we walked away as we did....those who had worked with us and others...look at Cambodia. Look at Korea. Really still going on. No one has found away to end it...it is a standoff. So I don't blame Pres. Obama . Once it began, it became very difficult if not impossible to end.

Colin Powell once said unless you are prepared to use overwhelming force don't got to war...and he was right. War is a 20th century solution that stopped working decades ago and we need new ways to settle conflict.

[Orsino]

28. Undeclared wars may be the hardest to end...

...particularly when funded by blanks checks payable only to a current president.

[Demsrule86]

31. This is true...but I can understand why Pres. Obama could not end it easily... you would be

responsible for millions more deaths in that region.

[Orsino]

32. I disagree...

...but I must admit that our military interference is not the only problem. We would earn a lot less responsibility for deaths not directly caused by our invasions and occupations.

If others want to kill, we should not necessarily be involved, but if we do start shooting, doing so as part of a UN intiative is prefereble. And if we don't visit war on other countries, we should also back off on the predatory capitalism, which incurs its own death toll.

[ck4829]

25. K&R

[HopeAgain]

26. People live under the illusion history will judge the USA favorably

We never gave up our colonial, conqueror approach to the world. We will be described as a violent people.

[Doodley]

29. They had more investigations into emails and Benghazi to damage Hillary Clinton than their

lies that led to a war that killed over a million people. Obama thought Repugs would go easy on him if he let it go. We should know by now that you should never treat bastards with kid gloves.