Rachel Maddow/NBC News: Last Combat Brigade Out of Iraq

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 03:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TQdCVkLQu0   Posted on YouTube: August 19, 2010 By YouTube Member: FixedNewsChannel Views on YouTube: 4   Posted on DU: August 19, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 755

 
FixedNewsChannel | August 18, 2010

MSNBC Live Coverage - 18 August 2010: Keith Olbermann from New York and Rachel Maddow in the International Zone in Baghdad w/ Richard Engel cover the movement of the last combat brigade as their vehicle leaves Iraq crossing into Kuwait.

PART ONE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=496572&mesg_id=496572

[Jack Rabbit]

1. That's one small step for America, one giant leap for mankind

First of all, kudos for our combat troops. Military discipline would break down if troops did not follow orders, and those who try to place the burden of an illegal war on the individual soldier try to make the world a much simpler place than it really is. That is why Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried for war crimes, not GI Joe. Our troops fought bravely and with honor. The 4500 dead American troops are as much the victims of neoconservative murderers and thieves as are the countless Iraqis who died under their bombs or of their bureaucratic incompetence that failed to deliver reliable electricity, water, police protection or medication to the Iraqi people for years.

The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror or even national defense. Saddam had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks and was not a threat to his weakest neighbor, let alone the United States. The Bush administration was lying about Saddam's weapons capabilities and continued to lie even long after its falsehoods were exposed. That statement that could been said even before the first US missiles struck Baghdad in March 2003.

The war in Iraq was an imperial war, pure and simple. The object of the war was clearly not disarm Iraq, that mission had already been accomplished years earlier, and the Bushies knew or had reason to know that. The object of that war was to place Iraq's natural resources, specifically its oil reserves, in private western hands. This was reason enough to oppose the war, which was an international crime on its face.

By no stretch of the imagination could the war be called an American success. The last combat troops left last night in the midst of an Iraqi political crisis. Five months after an election, no new government has been formed. Seven years after US troops invaded and overthrew Saddam, there is no stable democracy in Iraq. There is an agreement between Iraq and the United States which allows western corporations to exploit Iraq's petroleum resources, but there is no Iraqi government to enforce it. If some future Iraqi government were to renege on the deal, there is no guarantee that Americans would be willing to fight for it. I, for one, would oppose sending US troops on behalf of fat corporations to Iraq a second time to secure natural resources which rightly belong to the Iraqi people.