Withdrawal Pains

Tears are flowing in Iraq. For years, US taxpayer billions have been disappearing down the maw of the Endless Undeclared War. The U.S. occupation troops were ordered to throw Americans’ money at anything that moved, in the name of winning “hearts and minds” of the Iraqis. But most of it was sheer waste and gained us nothing but contempt — observe, for instance, the re-emergence of the crafty Curveball, that neocon concoction who lied like a rug, and got paid very well for it, in order to ease our national conscience as the Bush Administration went to war. He has just neoconned again. Once a con man, always a con man, as Chalabi used to say.

But I digress. Iraqi tears have flowed for years as hundred thousands of innocents were killed by the Endless War Machine. Of course, U.S. troops were ordered to throw money in that direction too, paying off the families of dead civilians human collateral damage. The suffering of the innocents continues unabated, of course, evidenced most recently by the massacre of dozens of Iraqi Catholics attending Mass on the eve of All Saints Day (which was barely noticed by the US government and media, since the annihilation of Christianity in Iraq is the direct result of American policy there).

But again I digress. Well, after having achieved “peace” by building walls everywhere, installing a non-functioning government, and routinely paying off thousands of Iraqis not to fight, the U.S. is on a “glide path” to departure, and the Iraqis who were getting hard “Cash American” for years are feeling their own withdrawal pains. Iraq’s economy, we are told, will now suffer (no mention of what the Iraq debacle has done to our own economy, however).

And what is left for America and Iraq? One Iraqi who lost his job with the American military writes the epitaph for the entire disastrous enterprise: “It wasn’t worth it, but what was the alternative? I got a little money. Now life must go on,” he said.

Meanwhile, America’s war machine goes in search of new foreign monsters to destroy. Undoubtedly, “a little money” will be part of the bargain, and life — at least for the plunderers and profiteers — will go on.

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9:31 am on December 6, 2010