5th Anniversary of the "Shock and Awe"
Today is a big day. Exactly 5 years ago, this Administration had taken our whole nation on an adventure that we call the Invasion of Iraq. Nevermind the lies, the deceptions and various other actions unbecoming of our government that led to the War, what have we achieved after 5 years of this bloody conflict?
Fred Kaplan, of the Slate, does a pretty decent job analyzing the results of the 5 years following the start of the "Shock and Awe". I agree with him on most points.
We had a stable Iraq, ruled by an ironfist dictator, who was an enemy of al Qaeda. In removing him, not only did we do al Qaeda's bidding, we had also removed the one power that had kept Iraq's factions together.
Iraq is in the state of flux if not an outright civil war. We had been able to reduce the violence level in late 2007. Some of it can be attributed to the search, some to the moratorium on violence from the Shiite leader Moqtada as-Sadr, some of it to the ethnic cleansing virtually separating the combatants, and more yet to the alliance of US forces and Sunni militias against al Qaeda (before the surge began).
Be it as it may, our military leaders do not see it possible to even reduce the troops levels to the pre-Surge levels, which suggests that we're still saddled by more than 140,000 troops in Iraq for a long occupation.
We have directly spent more than half a trillion dollars on the occupation and the war. If one were to combine all the indirect expenses this war will be responsible for, you're looking at $2T-$3T ("T" for Trillions) over about 10 years or so.
But what has such expense bought us? Our military is in shambles. It can not stretch no more should we become mired in another war or have to respond to a threat elsewhere. Due to the Iraq War expenditures in material, personnel, finances, we were unable to efficiently carry out anti-al Qaeda and anti-Taliban actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today, 6 and a half years after 9/11, we're still haven't been able to capture Osama bin Laden and curtail al Qaeda. It appears, al Qaeda is reforming, strengthening, reaching countries where it was never found before. Osama bin Laden continues to command his loyal followers from some cave on the Aghanistan-Pakistan border and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.
Iranian President is able to walk the Baghdad streets, on an announced visit, adored by the public without even a bullet-proof jacket, a far cry from McCain visiting only the much safer Green Zone wearing a bullet-proof vest and surrounded by a platoon of our marines. Instead of the anti-Iranian bulwark in Iraq, we find ourselves fighting to preserve an Iranian ally!
According to the Iraq Coalition Casualties, the Coalition has suffered 4298 dead, including 3990 dead American soldiers, nearly 29,400 wounded US soldiers and several thousand wounded non-US coalition soldiers. (current data, including today).
According to the Iraqi Body Count site, we have from 82,249 - 89,760 Iraqi civilian dead directly attributable to the war. This discounts the dead whose death has not been attributed to any one source, the dead who went unreported, the dead who'd suffered their faith due to the lack of food, electricity, medication, water, etc...
But, in fact, there are estimated that take this number to half a million or more.
So, what have we achieved after 5 years of the Iraq adventure? Nothing good, really...
Fred Kaplan, of the Slate, does a pretty decent job analyzing the results of the 5 years following the start of the "Shock and Awe". I agree with him on most points.
We had a stable Iraq, ruled by an ironfist dictator, who was an enemy of al Qaeda. In removing him, not only did we do al Qaeda's bidding, we had also removed the one power that had kept Iraq's factions together.
Iraq is in the state of flux if not an outright civil war. We had been able to reduce the violence level in late 2007. Some of it can be attributed to the search, some to the moratorium on violence from the Shiite leader Moqtada as-Sadr, some of it to the ethnic cleansing virtually separating the combatants, and more yet to the alliance of US forces and Sunni militias against al Qaeda (before the surge began).
Be it as it may, our military leaders do not see it possible to even reduce the troops levels to the pre-Surge levels, which suggests that we're still saddled by more than 140,000 troops in Iraq for a long occupation.
We have directly spent more than half a trillion dollars on the occupation and the war. If one were to combine all the indirect expenses this war will be responsible for, you're looking at $2T-$3T ("T" for Trillions) over about 10 years or so.
But what has such expense bought us? Our military is in shambles. It can not stretch no more should we become mired in another war or have to respond to a threat elsewhere. Due to the Iraq War expenditures in material, personnel, finances, we were unable to efficiently carry out anti-al Qaeda and anti-Taliban actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today, 6 and a half years after 9/11, we're still haven't been able to capture Osama bin Laden and curtail al Qaeda. It appears, al Qaeda is reforming, strengthening, reaching countries where it was never found before. Osama bin Laden continues to command his loyal followers from some cave on the Aghanistan-Pakistan border and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.
Iranian President is able to walk the Baghdad streets, on an announced visit, adored by the public without even a bullet-proof jacket, a far cry from McCain visiting only the much safer Green Zone wearing a bullet-proof vest and surrounded by a platoon of our marines. Instead of the anti-Iranian bulwark in Iraq, we find ourselves fighting to preserve an Iranian ally!
According to the Iraq Coalition Casualties, the Coalition has suffered 4298 dead, including 3990 dead American soldiers, nearly 29,400 wounded US soldiers and several thousand wounded non-US coalition soldiers. (current data, including today).
According to the Iraqi Body Count site, we have from 82,249 - 89,760 Iraqi civilian dead directly attributable to the war. This discounts the dead whose death has not been attributed to any one source, the dead who went unreported, the dead who'd suffered their faith due to the lack of food, electricity, medication, water, etc...
But, in fact, there are estimated that take this number to half a million or more.
So, what have we achieved after 5 years of the Iraq adventure? Nothing good, really...