In Summary: The killing and bloodshed of the Iraq War will not be erased by a mere turn of the page.
Last week, President Obama called an end to combat in Iraq. He said troops will begin returning home and 50,000 will stay behind to help train Iraqis to help defend their country against enemies both foreign and domestic.
Obama said we will be turning the page on the United States’ seven-year war in Iraq. Sorry, it’s not that easy. The killing and bloodshed will not be erased by a mere turn of the page. Just ask the families in today’s front-page article to turn a page and forget about the years of pain and emotion at losing a loved one in Iraq.
Ask others who are now taking care of soldiers who are wounded so badly they may never recover, or others who have lost limbs and still others who have decided the pain and torment are not worth it and took their lives.
Travel to Iraq where the dead number anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million depending on various counts because neither the U.S. nor Iraq bothered to count the Iraqi dead.
The aftermath of the Iraq war will be felt for many years as we wrestle with the three reasons why we invaded the country. Our military did manage to depose Saddam Hussein, a ruthless dictator, but the government in power now is shaky at best. It will take many years of a dedicated citizenry for democracy to be the norm in Iraq because it will be a lengthy process for the different Islamic factions to decide that cooperation is better than random acts of violence.
The third reason is one Americans will have to rationalize the best they can. We went to war in Iraq because of imminent danger from weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist.
For the troops, however, the boots on the ground, the official reasons for the war and the withdrawal are irrelevant. They had to follow orders, which left more than 4,000 — like Spc. Raymond L. White, Elwood, Sgt. Robert E. Colvill, Anderson, Staff Sgt. Brian K. Miller, Pendleton and Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Smith, Anderson — dead. Their families will be left wondering what the soldiers died for, whether it was worth it and how they will be able to cope with this shocking jolt to their lives.
Combat has come to an end, but two things will continue in Iraq: violence by those jockeying for power and U.S. presence. During the war years, the U.S. built the largest embassy on earth in Baghdad for the express purpose of maintaining a Mideast presence.
So it’s with a grain of salt that we listen to the president say we are turning the page on Iraq. For many Americans and Iraqis, the past will always be present while they mourn their dead and disabled andftheir own shattered lives, Countries can arbitrarily say that a war has ended but after seven years the horror in Iraq is not going away easily.
As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
