Tuesday, December 27th, 2011
Stephan: It was the creature of George Bush, Dick Cheney and their evil -- an adjective I choose with care -- band. It took almost nine years, cost almost a trillion dollars siphoned out of America's economy, out of our schools, and elder care support, and help for young mothers. Much of it going into the pockets of Bush-Cheney cronies and sycophants.
It killed nearly 4,500 young American men and women, who answered their country's call, the one per cent of America that actually fought, or waited at home in constant dread of a notification their loved one was dead or maimed. It sent them home in body bags, or maimed with grievous wounds. Hundreds of thousands of them suffering from varying degrees of PTSD. They and their families will never be the same.
It destroyed Iraq, in the process killing over one hundred thousand Iraqis, by conservative count. It left a legacy of hate for America that will take generations to cool, if it ever does.
All for what? Have you ever heard anyone make a coherent plausible defensible case for this insanity? I haven't, and I have been listening daily for almost a decade.
Click through to see Sinco's images.
On Sunday morning, Dec. 18, I received a mass email from President Obama, informing me that the last of our troops had left Iraq.
The war is over.
To me, the final figures, reported in The Times, are staggeringly unreal: Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers died. An estimated 104,000 to 113,000 Iraqi civilians died. The U.S. spent in excess of $832 billion on a war that lasted more than 3,000 days. Approximately 150 journalists died covering the conflict.
Amid the retrospectives and requiems marking the war’s end, I’ve tried to find meaning from my experience in it. Many political pundits say it was all a big mistake and a terrible waste. I try to push these thoughts aside. It has to mean something, at least to all those touched by the war.
Almost daily, images from the war cross my mind, like an endless loop of film.
I remember a woman wailing in grief over her mortally wounded grandson in the streets of Baghdad. The 8-year-old was tagging along behind a squad of American soldiers who came under attack. He was struck by grenade shrapnel and died at the hospital. I wonder if nine years has dulled that grandmother’s anguish. I think about the soldiers I […]
