Where do we go from here?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

Where do we go from here?
posted with permission from the author of http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com/ and http://candlelightvigils.blogspot.com/

In January, 2006 I began what is now 232 weekly candlelight vigils to remember those who had been killed or wounded in the Iraq War. To date millions of Iraqi men, women and children have been killed or wounded, as have thousands of U.S. and allied troops. Iraq is in ruins, its economy shattered with unemployment twice the level of the U.S. Great Depression of the 1930's, electricity for just four hours a day, meaning little or no air conditioning in 110 degree temperatures, little refrigeration, television or lighting and clean water and sewage treatment are scarce as the electric generators and pumps are often down.

Over 2 million Iraqis have fled their nation including many of the doctors, nurses, professors, school teachers and other educated people who provide vital services. Medical supplies are scarce and often trade in the black market which means children, ill from filthy drinking water and disease receive little care, and many of them die. The situation is so bad and the anger so high, that you as an American would not be safe on the streets of Baghdad, Mosul, Basra or Fallujah without a security detail along side you. Even the U.S. military only ventures out in numbers, not individually.

Now President Obama declared "an end to combat operations" in Iraq leading the American people to think the Iraq War is over. In fact, the U.S. will keep 50,000 troops in "stability operations," likely 50,000 more as "contractors," (mercenary soldiers provided by Halliburton, Blackwater, etc. and whose numbers are rarely released to the media) and another perhaps 3,000 Special Forces, an elite fighting force (whose numbers are also rarely released to the media). The heavily secured Green Zone, where the U.S. and foreign officials live and work and in which the Iraq government, kept in power by the U.S. military also live and work and about 90 U.S. military bases (that's right 90!) will remain.

If you've wondered if this war is over oil, it never was, for until March 20, 2003 when President Bush ordered the Iraq invasion, Saddam Hussein was one of the U.S.'s biggest oil suppliers. It was and is about power, for Iraq is and will remain the U.S. military's strategic launch point for its attempts to control the Middle East. Weapons of Mass Destruction was just a cover used to frighten the American people.

My question for you is given the impression the American public will have that the Iraq War is over, where do we go from here? How can we reach their hearts and minds, something that has already been a tough task given that so few Americans are directly affected by this war?

Dick

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

1. "How can we reach their hearts and minds..."

.. something that has already been a tough task given that so few Americans are directly affected by this war?"

[nashville_brook]

2. what's really frightening is that the people in charge of making war

aren't monolithic. there's factions, and there's turf, and it might not even be under "our" control. the bureaucracy that created (office of special plans/operations), who are they now? are they still in charge? how much was obama able to change coming in? how much did he have to put on the back burner in order to be politique. how much was he influenced thru less than amiable means?

this is a monster that's been created, and has not been put down. it has a life of its own. and the OP is correct, it's obviously not about the oil in Iraq as a commodity. if it's about hegemony in the ME...then that's terrifying.