The US invasion and occupation of Iraq as finally reached a dead end. After the world's superpower broke international law to wage a war of aggression against a nation that posed no threat, the US went on to commit heinous war crimes and literally wreck a nation already reeling from a decade of debilitating sanctions. Without the means to defend itself, the regime and the nation was toppled in a spectacular, if barbaric, show of "shock and awe" that rankles to this day.
After a wild ride of civil war, ethnic cleansing and millions of displaced persons, and after the deaths of anywhere from 500,000 to a million people, enough order was brought out of chaos -- after the US "surged" in cash payments to co-opt its adversaries -- to allow a civilian government to form, which while dysfunction did manage to forge an agreement with the occupier to vacate its presence by the end of 2011.
This the event announce with such fanfare by the Imposter-in-chief, Barack Obama.
Obama announces end of Iraq war, troops to return home by year end - Political Hotsheet - CBS News: "
President Obama announced Friday that the United States will withdraw nearly all troops from Iraq by the end of the year, effectively bringing the long and polarizing war in Iraq to an end.
"After nearly 9 years, America's war in Iraq will be over," said Mr. Obama.
He said the last American troops will depart the country by January 1 "with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops."
"The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward, and our troops are finally coming home," he added, saying in the White House briefing room that U.S. troops "will definitely be home for the holidays." "
This is not the outcome the US military wished for. It had held out hope -- and desperately implored the Iraqis -- that it be allowed to remain, if only in an "advisory" or "training" capacity, but these solicitations were firmly rejected by the Iraqis. No politician -- regardless of the inducements DC might offer -- would dare accede to this bargain with the devil, which would have invited a reignited civil war and hell to pay for anyone presumptuous enough to allow the hated occupier to remain for a single day.
The US administration will portray this ignominious exit as a triumph of our gallant troops in the war against terror, or in the name of freedom,, or any of a number of patently false declarations that the mission was accomplished, and that our exceptionally good, benevolent and generous nation has achieved "success" in its warm and fuzzy goals.
The US public may be clueless, but the rest of the world is not -- especially the Iraqis. They saw their beautiful country savaged by barbarians from across the sea, who wanted only one thing: oil. Despite all the protestations and appeals to patriotism and our better natures, this was a squalid and debauched grab for the wealth of another peoples' nation, done with impunity and utter disregard for all civilized norms of behavior. The invasion and all the despicable machinations of the US and its coalition "partners" in crime was a rotten and damnable exercise in naked power by a demonic cabal of neoconservative monsters who saw the world as its own personal playpen. They sought to enrich themselves and their cronies by committing a coup against the government they led, and auctioned off the pieces of Iraq as if they were their personal property.
While to US media busily portrays opponents of their masters' imperial project as cold-blooded, remorseless killers worthy of execution without any due process, US presidents and the sycophants are lionized and awarded Nobel Peace prizes, or get multi-million-dollar book deals and $150,000 speaking engagements to recite a bastardized, self-aggrandizing history of their calamities -- not the ones they suffered, but the ones they caused.
Barack Obama is a liar and a chump who claimed to be against the Iraq war from the beginning, and yet was content to allow the US occupation to continue indefinitely -- had it only been possible to arrange. Still, the US presence -- in its billion-dollar embassy complex, staffed by 1,000 "diplomats," along with a mammoth mercenary army -- will continue uninterrupted.
As with almost everything the US touches, nothing is as it appears to be. When the occupation ends, it will probably only be beginning. Iran is the next stop for "real men" among the neocon cadres, and there is practically nothing that these power-mad gamblers in DC aren't willing to try in the never-ending quest to extend the regime of the petrodollar.
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