| When and at What Price is "Victory" Real? |
Michael Bugg
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Letter to the Editor
When and at what Price is “Victory” Real?
Michael Bugg
Clinton, Ky.
Consider this. The man who joined the Texas Air National Guard so that he would not have to risk his own life in Vietnam, and who quit his flying duties and ignored an order to get a flight physical two years before he fulfilled his 6 year obligation, now insist he will keep our troops in Iraq until we have “victory.”
I thought we had “victory” when Iraq’s army left the field of battle to hide in their homes, and we determined to everyone’s satisfaction except Dick Cheney that there were WMD? At least when we murdered Saddam in a show trial I thought that the “Mission Accomplished” sign finally applied?
And it is so; we won the “war,” if you can call it a war when a superpower attacks a third world country with the mere remnants of a military force! It’s only the mismanaged occupation that we have lost, thanks to Bush’s determination that our troops would beat the Iraqi people into submission by killing some and terrorizing the rest.
And thanks to disbanding their army and police force, and building 55 bases and installations for our troops to permanently occupy their country instead of seriously rebuilding what we had destroyed since 1991.
And didn’t bush say from the beginning that he would listen to our generals when making his decision when to leave Iraq, which he NEVER intended to do as long as there is oil there and we need it?
But when retired generals told him before we invaded that it was not a good idea, he ignored them. When active generals told him it would take more troops to avoid chaos, he ignored them then replaced them.
When several retired generals and admirals stood with John Kerry during the 2004 election campaign and said we need to take a different path, he ignored them. Then when generals and colonels since then said they were finding very few actual foreign fighters, much less Al Qaeda, or they said it was not worth the cost, he replace them.
And besides, that, it is not up to the generals to determine when to start or end a war. It is up to, We the People!
With the current $ 500+ billion cost of the war, in direct costs, and indirect cost pushing to $ 1 trillion or more, there is no way the average American will benefit from “victory” in Iraq.
And every dime of the war has been borrowed, to be paid by Americans after bush cuts and runs from his responsibility to pay for his own mess! Since the invasion has turned the whole world against us, and turned a few hundred Islamic people who hate us into a few million, the only Americans to benefit from “victory” there are our defense contractors and our oil companies and the contractors who get to rebuild what our bombs destroyed in the first place!
And why does anyone still believe it is about establishing democracy in the Middle East when he is making no effort to force democracy on any other KINGDOM in the region?
But apparently the number of Americans who see the truth and care enough to try to put a stop to it is so small that the insanity will not end anytime in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, democracy gets trashed in this country by Bush and his supporters.
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