By Daniel Nardini
It was a war brought on by a complete lie. Then U.S. President George W. Bush claimed (it was a stretch even when the claim was made) that the Iraqi government under then dictator Saddam Hussein was close to making a nuclear bomb. If “we” did not do something about it, then Iraq would have nuclear weapons and the world would be in a serious situation. So, Bush got Congressional authorization for the use of a U.S. military invasion of Iraq (House of Representatives in favor 296 to 133, and the U.S. Senate in favor 77 to 23), and for the first several weeks the whole thing seemed to have gone on very smoothly with an American “victory.” Essentially, Bush arrived on the USS carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, and said “mission accomplished.” That is the short version of what happened. The long-term version is what we know from 20/20 hindsight did happen—a war that continued with a major Iraqi insurgency for the next eight years with a loss of 4,492 American soldiers and 31,994 wounded. What did the United States truly accomplish for that war? Iraq became essentially a satellite of Iran, and Iraq is no more better than it was before the Iraq War.
The era where this all happened seems like another time and era and world. Why would the U.S. Congress go along a war based on a lie, and why did it continue to give Bush funding for a war that did not go well? The time period was a sad one. The September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the United States left an indelible imprint on the psyche of the U.S. government and on the American people, and this drove this country into a war in Afghanistan. The war hysteria was so great that Bush had no real problem getting the funding he needed for another war when the American people and the U.S. Congress should have been thinking whether a second war was necessary. The whole time as I remember it was one where the Bush administration declared that anyone who was “against” the war was deemed “unpatriotic” could face threats from the U.S. government (and that did happen in trying to silence opposition to the war). While this war was going on, Bush did NOT deal with the domestic economic problems that were beginning to crop up. The Enron scandal was in my view the wake-up call for how a major corporation had collapsed in Texas and how that had repercussions for the whole country.
The collapse of Enron should have been the five alarm fire for everyone from economists and government bureaucrats. But sadly, the U.S. government under Bush did not heed the gathering storm in the U.S. economy until the Great Recession hit in 2008. Strangely enough, it was the U.S. Congress that passed emergency legislation before the economy could have collapsed. Really, Bush did nothing about it, and to this day in my view Bush during his entire eight year presidency accomplished nothing majorly positive and had put this country into two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) that still affect this country to this day (especially to those veterans who fought in Iraq and now feel discarded. How will they be taken care of with chronic wounds they suffered from a war that never had to happen?). Now that the United States is in a war with Iran that has too many parallels to the Iraq War, I have to ask myself what has the U.S. government really learned? This country should have learned that forever wars are disasters no matter which president believes they can accomplish a positive outcome. The Middle East is one of the most complex and one of the least stable areas on earth, and George W. Bush simply demonstrated American hubris that relied on the U.S. military doctrine that bombs, brute strength and state-of-the-art weaponry could carry the day.
As I sit here as an old man, it truly saddens me that U.S. government foreign policy in regards to “might makes right” has still not changed for so many decades. America did not learn anything from the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. We could be losing sons and daughters for nothing as we did in those wars. When a nation starts losing so many sons and daughters in wars this country keeps losing, there is a lot of soul-searching this country should be doing.
Echoes of 2003
By Daniel Nardini
The era where this all happened seems like another time and era and world. Why would the U.S. Congress go along a war based on a lie, and why did it continue to give Bush funding for a war that did not go well? The time period was a sad one. The September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the United States left an indelible imprint on the psyche of the U.S. government and on the American people, and this drove this country into a war in Afghanistan. The war hysteria was so great that Bush had no real problem getting the funding he needed for another war when the American people and the U.S. Congress should have been thinking whether a second war was necessary. The whole time as I remember it was one where the Bush administration declared that anyone who was “against” the war was deemed “unpatriotic” could face threats from the U.S. government (and that did happen in trying to silence opposition to the war). While this war was going on, Bush did NOT deal with the domestic economic problems that were beginning to crop up. The Enron scandal was in my view the wake-up call for how a major corporation had collapsed in Texas and how that had repercussions for the whole country.
The collapse of Enron should have been the five alarm fire for everyone from economists and government bureaucrats. But sadly, the U.S. government under Bush did not heed the gathering storm in the U.S. economy until the Great Recession hit in 2008. Strangely enough, it was the U.S. Congress that passed emergency legislation before the economy could have collapsed. Really, Bush did nothing about it, and to this day in my view Bush during his entire eight year presidency accomplished nothing majorly positive and had put this country into two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) that still affect this country to this day (especially to those veterans who fought in Iraq and now feel discarded. How will they be taken care of with chronic wounds they suffered from a war that never had to happen?). Now that the United States is in a war with Iran that has too many parallels to the Iraq War, I have to ask myself what has the U.S. government really learned? This country should have learned that forever wars are disasters no matter which president believes they can accomplish a positive outcome. The Middle East is one of the most complex and one of the least stable areas on earth, and George W. Bush simply demonstrated American hubris that relied on the U.S. military doctrine that bombs, brute strength and state-of-the-art weaponry could carry the day.
As I sit here as an old man, it truly saddens me that U.S. government foreign policy in regards to “might makes right” has still not changed for so many decades. America did not learn anything from the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. We could be losing sons and daughters for nothing as we did in those wars. When a nation starts losing so many sons and daughters in wars this country keeps losing, there is a lot of soul-searching this country should be doing.