Most people probably know that today marks the official end of US operations in Iraq. I'm going to link to the CNN article covering the event:
I chose that one just because it was an easy way to link to video coverage of the actual ceremony. This might betray my sentimental tendencies, but I'm always fascinated when something culminates into a specific moment. Whether it's the flipping of the tassel at a graduation ceremony, getting the "I now pronounce you joined in matrimony" from the judge/priest/ship captain, or in this case, the lowering of our colors in Iraq so that they may finally come home.
Going back a ways, I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down.
I remember the experience of seeing similar footage on TV at the time and being moved, but I was fourteen at the time so I obviously has missed the bulk of the events and sentiment that led up to such a seminal moment.
With the Iraq War, I got to experience the event in its entirety. From the September 11th attacks, to the presentation by Colin Powell at the UN detailing (incorrectly it turned out) Iraq's efforts to obtain WMDs:
And beyond to President Bush's speech to our nation setting the stage to our invasion:
Part 2:
The official announcement that combat operations had begun:
At first, things seemed to be going pretty well:
Events like this led to what might have been a turning point in the conflict:
One thing to notice... the official commencement of combat operations happened in mid-March, the Mission Accomplished speech at the beginning of May. Roughly a month and a half passed between those two, a timeframe that would be dwarfed by the next eight-plus years spent in Iraq.
In the end, the Iraq War claimed almost 4,500 U.S. lives, possibly over 150,000 Iraqi lives (with some estimating 80% of those deaths as civilian), left 30,000 U.S. soldiers wounded, and cost over $800 billion.
I think the entire event is still too present in our minds to start calculating what lasting impression the conflict as a whole should have in the history books. But on last night's Rachel Maddow show, Ms. Maddow talked a little bit about the relationship between our country and our military.
In that clip, Rachel Maddow describes how our ten years and counting at war in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially been shouldered by less than one percent of our population. The phrase "one percent" gets tossed around a lot these days in a very different context, one that represents those in this country who have benefitted (disproportionately) the most from what our country has to offer.
We let that one percent nuke the economy, get bailed out, and get massive tax breaks. The other one percent, those soldiers who fought in Iraq and still fight in Afghanistan, get to come home to this despicable mess to struggle to put their personal lives back together after such a massive disruption while trying to get by in a tough U.S. economy.
Our politics shouldered this other one percent with an unimaginable burden when we decided to invade Iraq. Our politics took this other one percent for granted while we fumbled our domestic policies, and now our politics look to continue the favoritism bestowed on the richest one percent while throwing the other one percent a jobs bill offering tax incentives for hiring veterans.
The GOP presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, all expressed disappointment at the idea of all our troops in Iraq coming home. Some wanted to keep twenty thousand troops there, others teased at throwing down with Iran. Either way, I feel those GOP candidates fail to see that other one percent as fellow citizens, instead seeing them as a tool or a resource to throw at arbitrary goals, sort of like a credit default swap.
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