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LESSON LEARNED?

Seven and a half years ago, we began our exccedingly arrogant shock and awe pounding of Baghdad. At the time I headed a current events discussion group at the Braille Institute. When the invasion began, under the pretext of searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), I began a regular transference of my skepticism to the group. As the months passed, that skepticism increased. I suggested that we never would leave Iraq. As to the ruse used for the intervention, I composed the following lyrics, to be sung to the last verse of “The Way You Look Tonight”:

Someday, double-U-M-D’s

Will be found in trees,

In desert oases,

Oh, please believe me –

In two thousand twenty-three.

With last night’s reverse march of the bulk of U.S. “combat” troops from Iraq to Kuwait, it would appear that our military operations in Iraq have come to an end. In my Braille group, I constantly divulged the little-advertised fact that, even during the worst of the fighting, we were building PERMANENT military installations all over Iraq. Last night’s combat troops are leaving behind 50,000 “non-combat” troopsk, for whom there is no announced tenure. So far, I am still right!

At least as far as Iraq is concerned, I hope we make good use of the lessons taught by those arrogant sons of bitches who GAVE us Iraq! – George W. Bush; Dick Cheney; Donald Rumsfeld; the Neoconservatives; and a craven congress. The positive effects of that lesson are dubious, however, as the Manifest Destiny/American Exceptionalism crowd already is clamoring at the gates, hoping to be in control again – chomping at the bit to exercise their outdated, nativist hubris.

Barack Obama is to be credited with bringing about at least this limited extraction from Iraq. Nevertheless, in order to curry the fleeting goodwill of the warmongers, he foolishly extended our presence in Iraq. That will cost him.

Seemingly, Dwight Eisenhower’s admonition will continually go for naught. Apparently, our military and business interests coexist with too much volatility to avoid constantly reenacting Thomas Jefferson’s dictum regarding life’s blood and horticulture.