Tell Me Again, Why Did My Friends Die In Iraq?

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/iraq-war-reasons-2014-1



***SNIP

The proof of how pointless the entire endeavour was — if you even needed more — came Friday morning, with a report from Liz Sly in the Washington Post.

"At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah," a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety told Sly. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”

Fallujah has fallen, and the same scenario is about to happen in the even-larger city of Ramadi.

It shouldn't be such a surprise the place my friends fought for is falling back into civil war. I shouldn't be surprised when the same thing happens in Afghanistan. But it still is, because I don't want it to happen.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iraq-war-reasons-2014-1#ixzz2pR3JfKyX

[panader0]

1. K and R

[Baitball Blogger]

2. The Jenga paragraph:

"The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history," he wrote. "It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iraq-war-reasons-2014-1#ixzz2pRDcbvWK

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. So that millionaires could become billionaires. The economic draft is real.

[bemildred]

4. They were told, the Neocons, this would happen. They didn't care. nt

[kelliekat44]

5. Remember..."Bush lied and people died?" nt

[spanone]

6. ask cheney, ask bu$h

[Savannahmann]

7. I'm sorry, but that is the worst excuse for continued involvement.

Because we don't want the sacrifice to be lost, or for nothing, we should keep throwing more at the problem. That is the asinine excuse bandied about on the Drug War, we can't stop now, or the lost lives and efforts are for naught. My father used to tell me that we could take all the money expended on the drug war. Prison costs, judicial costs, equipment and fuel, salaries and bribes paid to South American Politicians to let us in, and buy every ounce of illegal drugs in the world, and have money left over. I have long thought that he was right.

The argument was also used in Viet-Nam. We couldn't just leave, we had invested too much treasure, in lives and dollars, to just walk away. So we kept throwing lives at the wall of futility. More lives, more treasure, more futility were thrown at the wall as we searched for "Peace with Honor".

So now we are using the same discredited arguments for Iraq. We don't dare stop, because if we do, those losses would be sacrifices made in vain. How many becomes too many? How many more must we lose? Where do we draw the line? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand more dead?

I don't like the losses we've suffered. I don't like the perpetual war that the policies initiated. I am not about to support the losses of even more on both sides for some vague sacrifice in vain argument.

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. I didn't get that this was advocating continued involvement, I read it as a condemnation of

an unpunished crime and waste of life.

[Drahthaardogs]

9. Can History judge Bush now?

You're an idiot George.

[johnnyreb]

15. Bush: "History? We won't know-- we'll all be dead."

As quoted by Bob Woodward at about 48 seconds in:

[SamKnause]

10. Why?

Because the United States is a rogue, warmongering, corrupt nation run by psychopaths.

Voting will change absolutely nothing.

"We need to look forward, as opposed to looking back wards". Our democratic president Obama made that statement.

The psychopaths in DC all have their hands in the cookie jar, they protect one another, and they lie to cover up the lies.

I am pro government !

I am anti corrupt government !

The U.S. has not had a functioning government for many decades.

The Military Industrial Complex, the CIA, global corporations, global CEO's, and Wall Street control every aspect of the U.S. government.

We the people have no say in what the U.S. 'government' does.

[Martin Eden]

11. They died for Neocon delusions of a New American Century.

They died for the hubris, ignorance, and political ambitions of an administration appointed by the SCOTUS.

They died for war profiteers and for the petro dollar.

They died, while those who criminally sent them to their deaths live lives of wealth and privilege.


When GW Bush left the White House, I wrote this poem for what I'd like to say to him:

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 like to say eat shit and die
But you deserve much more
You should suffer all the grief and pain
Of your misbegotten war

Though I could never make you feel
Or think, 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
Till you're sick, heartbroken, and old

Then 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.

[Le Taz Hot]

12. It's the thing we're never supposed to say

but I'm going to say it. They died for a politician's ego and corporate greed. Our military hasn't been there to "protect our freedums" for decades. They're there because our military is for hire (except the taxpayers foot the bill and the soldiers pay the ultimate price) to whatever country our "leaders" deem are politically or monetarily worthy (Israel and Saudi Arabia), the MIC or Big Oil.

[Octafish]

13. Money.

"Money trumps peace" is how "president" George W Bush put it on Feb. 14, 2007 during a press conference at which not a single one of the callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to follow-up.

Later that news cycle, Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, did try to bring it to our nation's attention, but, for some reason, the press didn't run with her article.

This is the same mass media that swore North Vietnam attacked America in the Gulf of Tonkin, swore Bush had no idea bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States, and twice swore Iraq had WMDs, and swore for 50 years that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

[hrmjustin]

14. This is a nightmare that we created.

Shame on us.

[indepat]

16. They didn't die to protect us or our freedoms: they died to implement the right-wing PNAC

vision making junior a war president.

[Berlum]

17. "Why? So Crusader-Mercenaries could make massive profit." - Blackwater (R - now rebranded as Xe)

[TwilightGardener]

18. Well, they didn't die for nothing.

They were useful tools for very specific purposes and interests, at the time.

[Comrade Grumpy]

19. No good reason. Sorry.