Iraq: The Beginning Of The End Of Memory.
“Those who control the present, control the past
and those who control the past control the future.” ― George Orwell
[I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell],
Like a Sun, in his last deep hour;
Watched the magnificent recession of farewell,
Clouding, half gleam, half glower,
And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek.
And in his eyes
The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak,
In different skies.
Nothing could have been less noticeable than the whimper with which the United States claimed it had ended its nearly 10 year Iraq war and occupation. Short of our own Civil War that now ic carried forward in the Congress, almost nothing in our history needs more national soul-searching. About Iraq, we hear little but a whimper.
Few expected celebration. No ticker-tape rained down from the New York City’s Canyon of Heroes. None is expected to; the Pentagon has not been ordered to plan one. The troops themselves and their long-suffering loved ones fell into each other’s arms, though, as in all wars’ ends before. Now quickly follows an unspoken, “Where next”? “When”?
Have we learned enough of this war’s genesis to come away with anything resembling wisdom at our exodus?
What did we learn from Vietnam? Little but the value of deploying overwhelming force on a battlefield of our own choosing under our own cold war rules. Like the British we fought in our unprofessional way, the world outside of our own strategic box did not always cooperate. Unlike Vietnam, a victory retreat in overfilled helos barely able to gain airspeed enough to leave the roof of the Green Zone HQ was not broadcast for all to see.
In fact, some expressed disdain at our departure. Absent Ron Paul, GOP presidential candidates were uniformly opposed to ending our occupation.
From the non-stop media, virtually nothing is said of the beginning, the craven dishonesty throughout the Bush administration, ther bullying of national security agencies, the dismissal and criminalizing of dissent. No mention of the media’s early supplication that continues today.
The silence seems resounding. The GOP presidential candidates far and wide decry the decision to leave. The assumption throughout our national meditation on this war, if anything at all, revolves around what we accomplished there as we move on from a thoroughly disjointed country and its downtrodden people, more than a hungred thousand fewer that when we arrived. And the lielong physical and emotional injuries will starve Iraq’s spirit for multiple decades to come.
