No End for War in Iraq

I am very happy that our troops have finally left Iraq. My fellow blogger Gregory Humphrey is as well and he wrote a post expressing relief that our soldiers are leaving Iraq and that the war has had some horrible consequences. He lists many of them including dead and wounded American soldiers, the riches of Croesus having been spent, a serious blow to the United States' reputation, and the moral failing of the American people.

What's missing from his account, however, is any notion that 100,000+ Iraqi civilians died in the conflict. According to Iraq Body Count, we're looking at 104,122-113,770 dead Iraqis and that's a highly conservative estimate. Nearly three years ago some estimates gave us these gruesome statistics: about 1 million killed, 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows, 5 million orphans.

So, while Humphrey points out many tragedies, he neglects the extremely heavy toll inflicted on the Iraqi people and opts to lament, "Woe is us!" a shameful and solipsism display on his part.

The problem is that we are not leaving Iraq. As Spencer Ackerman of Wired notes, we have a mega-embassy there with some 18,000 people and there will be 3,500-5,500 "armed private security contractors". Security contractors? Soldiers? A distinction without a difference. I'm sure the Iraqi people simply see Americans with guns. And let's not forget that our troops are leaving because of the insistence of the Iraqi government, not because President Obama was ready to bring the boys back home.

If you were an Iraqi or an Iranian or just any average citizen of a Middle Eastern country, how would you take Obama's statement that "our strong presence in the Middle East endures"? (That's where the oil is, after all.) Does it instill confidence that Big Daddy Obama is looking out for you or do you take it as a threat? The Authorization for Use of Military Force is still intact so our government stands ready to send troops back to Iraq or anywhere else there are people considered to be terrorists. Plus no boots on the ground are required to start the Drone Wars in Iraq.

There are still lots of people in the Islamic world who recall with extreme embarrassment the ass-kicking that Muslims suffered at the hands of the Mongols in the 13th century (Hulagu Khan, for instance, laid waste to Baghdad in 1258.) yet the Obama administration sounds like it wants everyone to forget the millions of Iraqis who were killed, maimed, displaced, widowed, orphaned, or otherwise had their lives upset by our invasion. To add insult to injury, we are keeping a mega-embassy there along with thousands of security contractors and a promise to maintain a warlike posture in the region. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone over there for taking Obama's comment as a threat and think that we should be prepared for more blowback. End of the war my ass.