As The 10^th Anniversary Of The Iraq War Approaches-U.S./Allied Troops Out Of Afghanistan Now!  

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

[No this writer is not lost in a time warp, nor  is he suffering from a senior moment in noting the 10^th Anniversary of the ill-fated, ill-advised, ill, well, let’s just keep it as the previous two, start of the now seemingly completed fiasco in Iraq. However although American troops have mainly been withdrawn many thousand American bought and paid for “contract” soldiers are still operating in that theater. Moreover the wreckage from the huge American footprint (bootprint, really) is still wreaking havoc on that benighted land from lack of electrical power to unexploded bombs to speak nothing of the current constant political turmoil between the myriad factions struggling for power. Then there is the question of those tens of thousands of soldiers switched over within a heartbeat from benighted Iraq to benighted Afghanistan. The call for immediate troop withdrawal from Afghanistan if not drawing much support in these back- burner concern days is still a necessary call. Finally, if there is a modern example  of the follies of war, of a needless imperial adventure, of flat-out American imperial hubris to do something explosive (in more ways than one) then the ill-famed Iraq invasion started on March 19, 2003 should be etched in every leftist militant, hell, every thoughtful citizen’s brain.]         

Tim Reid was sure where he stood, stood on the impending war in Iraq, on that cold February 2003 New York City Saturday morning as he noted many, many people walking in the opposite direction headed toward Union Square or somewhere around there carrying signs and banners calling for No War In Iraq, Stop The War, and other more politically direct ones aimed at President Bush. Tim knew for sure was that he was not going to be among those who were heading in that opposite direction that day ready to clog up the streets of Manhattan to make their point. Not that he wished them ill, not that war was not a terrible way to deal with issues, not that he was unconcerned that American sons and daughters were going to be put in harm’s way again in bloody Iraq but 9/11 had changed a lot of things since he had been out front against the first Iraq war back in 1991.            

Yes the world had changed since then, had changed in ways not favorable to the interest of the United States, and so while he was against war like any reasonable man (or woman) he was backing President Bush on this one. At least until he saw what those weapons of mass destruction were that that bastard Saddam Hussein had brewing in those damn laboratories that he wouldn’t let inspectors see. Yes, in case anybody was asking, any of those peaceniks that were passing the other way, he had voted for George Bush in 2000 something he never thought he would do after his father dropped the ball in that first Iraq massacre. He had voted for Bill Clinton with both hands in 1992 against the old man. But like he said things had changed in the world since that dastardly deed on that sunny September morning. Stuff that no New Yorker alive should forgot, especially if like him, that citizen of this fair city had lost someone close to him or her. So it was personal too.       

Maybe too, and he would not discount it if pressed, Tim had changed too, older now, with kids, with responsibilities to take every effort to make sure those kids were secure in a dangerous world. Any father would. The thing that had tipped it for him though was when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave the green light, declared that mad man Hussein was doing nasty stuff against our interests over there in the desert. Some of Bush’s people, frankly, seemed kind of weird when they talked about war but General Powell was a solid, no nonsense guy and that made the difference. So damn yes, until somebody proved otherwise, he was sticking with the President and his people who knew lots of stuff maybe he and those protesters did not know. He hoped so…