Democracy Has Prevailed.

March 18, 2008

Five Years Later...

Tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of the beginnings of George W. Bush's War in Iraq.

Tony's got a column on it. He deconstructions the phrase "shock and awe" in new and exciting ways. First with this:
For Iraqis, it will be one more day filled with infamy. Five years after a White House media consultant came up with the term to describe the obliteration of one of the world's oldest civilizations, "shock and awe" has become the existential shorthand for the daily reality of ordinary Iraqis.
And then:

After the initial euphoria by the media and the administration died down, the unsettling truth about our Iraq adventure began to sink in. "Shock and awe" took on new connotations.

Shock and awe over our superior military might became speechlessness over the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed since the bombs began falling.

The deterioration of the Iraqi economy and the degradation of the country's infrastructure after years of sanctions aimed at toppling Saddam's regime was another example of shock and awe.

The insurgency and the violence that fuels the average Iraqi's sense of cultural and political loss is another way of experiencing shock and awe.

I can hear you now, out there. But everyone at the time believed that Saddam had those WMD that we now know he didn't have.

Not everyone.

This is from the first week of October, 2002:
While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.
But let's look at some numbers in dubya's bloody war (something Dick Cheney calls a successful endeavor):

As of this writing, 3,990 American troops have been killed.

As of this writing, 29,314 have been wounded.

As of this writing, 145 American troops have died of "self-inflicted wounds."

As of this writing, somewhere between 82,000 and 89,000 Iraqi deaths have been documented.

Billions of dollars to pay for something we were told would nearly pay for itself.

All this in five years.

NOTE: There'll be a candlelight vigil tomorrow in Squirrel Hill.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dayvoe, you are a communist atheist liberal pinko fellow-traveller and a liar.

Item: The surge is working.
Item: The Iraqi government needs just one more Friedman unit to create a new Garden of Eden.
Item: Our troops are happy to die for Ahmed Chalabi.
Item: Afghanistan is going even better.
Item: Saddam did so have WMDs.
Item: Saddam supplied the planes that crashed into the WTC on 9/11.

All of this and so much more proves that you are a communist atheist liberal pinko fellow-traveller and a liar.

And if I didn't mention it earlier, Dayvoe, you are a communist atheist liberal pinko fellow-traveller and a liar.

Why do you hate America?

CB Phillips said...

Seriously, string him up.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: You guys sure about the casualty figures on Iraqi citizens? A year ago you were echoing Rosie O'Donut when she said there were 100,000 dead Iraqis. Yep, we are winning. Which makes the left even more eager to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I thought for sure shitrock said "see you in Novemeber" and that he was done with this blog till then. I am certain he posted that. And yet here he is posting away. You know you love me Shitrock LOL LOL LOL

Laurie Mann said...

Heaven forbid that someone disagree with the government. I thought we lived in a democracy...

The surge is working in some places. In other places, women are forced to hide behind long black dresses and are encouraged to be suicide bombers since it's easier to hide explosives under those long black dresses.

Oh, wait, maybe the first response is just an early April Food's day joke...

While I reluctantly agreed that invading Afghanistan in 2001 was necessary, I never believed invading Iraq was.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: YOU ARE NOT LOOKING AT MY BEAUTIFUL PEENIE! Lookie! Lookie!

Anonymous said...

John K. says: The left is not opposed to the war in Iraq. They are just angry that a Republican is running it and that we are winning. After all, the last time a Democrat ran a war, Somalia, we lost. And Kosovo is still undecided. The left still feels intense guilt for pulling out of Somalia. Too bad for them. We are winning in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: MY DINKY! LOOK AT MY DINKY!

C.H. said...

The left does not feel any guilt over pulling out of Somalia. How often do the battle-scarred streets of Mogadishu ever get mentioned in Congress? Not to mention, they are struggling to make the same thing happen in Iraq, all so they can get a dem into the White House. It sounds disgusting, but its true. Why else would they focus on every bad thing that happens over there? Have you ever read to "latest updates on world's top stories" on CNN? It's like a mouthpiece for AQI to tout their accomplishments. Its pathetic.

I am worried that these next few years might become the "what can we do for ourselves" era if someone like Barack Obama wins the election. By that, I worry that people will only want to focus on what's happening in this country.

For five years, the media, the so-called "antiwar" movement, and the left have been looking for the bad things in Iraq, and unfortunately, when you do that, its all you'll ever find. Instead of tracking every terror attack inside Iraq's borders for the last five years, reporters should have been reporting from Irbil in Iraq's North, or from the perspective of coaltion soldiers providing humanitarian aid to Iraqis neglected under saddam Hussein.

But no, all we hear about is the bad news...and only when it can help defend an ideology. If the "antiwar" movement was really appalled by violence, they should be all over the humanitarian disaster that is happening in Eastern Congo and rippling across Central Africa, where over five million people have died as genocidal militias, warlords, and government forces battle for control of the mineral-rich region.

Today, we have a chance to bring peace to Iraq, a chance for progress, and a chance for a better tomorrow. The question is, do you people want it?

Anonymous said...

You know you love me Shitrock LOL LOL LOL

Indeed I do love ya, John -- and not just because of my love of congenital idiots. I love you, and Mein Heir, and C.H.

Each of you has a set of qualities that demonstrate the hopelessness of the FringeNut mentality. Your complete and utter inanity. Mein Heir's blinding fear and rage. And of course C.H.'s total denial of reality.

Put the three of you together, and voila! The compleat FringeNut: Dubya!

Jared McLaughlin said...

Just to pick a nit: I wouldn't use the number from IraqiBodyCount.org if you intend on using them in a serious discussion. Somewhere along the line their methodology is flawed, because the recorded incidents don't always match with what really happened.

For example, I have point to incidents in locations during certain time periods in which there where no civilian deaths attributable to war, whether from coalition forces or insurgent operations. Long story short: I know beyond a doubt that some of the deaths in the database are fabrications, hence the credibility of the entire database is suspect.

Bram Reichbaum said...

"Billions of dollars to pay for something we were told would nearly pay for itself."

Frankly, I'm rather more outraged about this. But as they say ... it takes two to lie, Marge. One to lie and one to listen.