We went to war with Iraq a wounded nation. Some say we were compelled by lofty motives; to put down a dictator whose brutal repression of his people cried out for their liberation, and whose weapons of mass destruction threatened the region, if not the world. But in our heart we knew what drove us into that vast desert. In our hearts we seethed with anger, with hate, and yes, with fear, and we went to seek vengeance. And in the blasting heat of those desert sands we took their blood, and spilled our own. And in the end, they danced in Fallujah, as we cased our flags.
As of the end of November of this year, 4486 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, 316 troops of other nations have been killed. Over half of those killed were under 25 years old. 32,226 have been wounded, about 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries. There is no official count of soldiers suffering PTSD. Iraqi Insurgents killed, roughly estimated at 55,000. A secret U.S. government estimate puts the Iraqi civilian death toll at over 100,000, although some estimates are 6 times that amount.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no tie to Al-Qaeda, American Forces were not greeted as "liberators," there was no plan to secure the country, its assets, or its weapon stores after the attack, the US military was not adequately prepared to deal with the insurgency, or its IEDs, troops were not supplied with adequate armor, and lack of leadership and proper supervision led to moral outrages like Abu-Graib and Haditha. The war cost American tax payers some $1 trillion dollars, billions of which have been lost or unaccounted for.
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