Misbegotten Iraq War Ends

After eight years and nine months America is finally out of the Iraq War.  The last convoy of 110 heavily-armored vehicles and some 500 soldiers, churning through the desert under a heavy umbrella of attack helicopters and fighter jets, crossed the Kuwait border in the predawn dark yesterday.  After nearly nine years of trying to pacify the country and win hearts and minds, that description of the exit probably tells us all we need to know about the extent of our success. 

We have all heard of the human cost, including 4,487 American dead and 32,226 wounded, (90% of the total coalition losses), and between 103,000 and 159,000 Iraqi deaths.  In addition to this is the direct monetary cost of $802 billion, with the indirect costs perhaps bringing the total as high as $3 trillion over the years, considering such factors as 20% of the wounded have brain or spinal injuries or that 30% of the 1 million U.S. troops who served there have manifested serious mental health issues.  These are the kinds of costs that never seem to get factored into a decision to go to war, and that will endure and have to be paid for over a span of decades.

Just as important as these considerations, though, are the questions raised by this misbegotten adventure that Americans now say was a mistake by an overwhelming margin.  The United States for the first time initiated a war-attacking and invading a country-that had not attacked the U.S. or its allies first.  The American government at least exaggerated and arguably even manufactured the evidence justifying the war.  The decision for war appears to have been determined by the principals in the Bush Administration even before it took office based on ideological presuppositions, and was not spelled out to the voting public as a likely policy of the candidate upon which the electorate could in part base its election decision.  The press failed in its duty to investigate the facts and properly inform the American people about the veracity of the claims being made. Instead, much of it allowed itself to be cowed into silence or support by political pressure.  The estimates of the human and monetary costs of the war, its duration, and the reaction of the Iraqi people were all absurdly misrepresented by the top officials of the U.S. government and its spokespeople.  And the legislative branch cooperated in eviscerating fundamental Constitutional liberties that have yet to be fully restored.  

All these factors are crucial, because although they have at this point at long last achieved widespread acknowledgement by the American people, there is every reason to question whether or not the nation has learned a lesson that will last into the future.  Now that the national firewall against aggressive war has been breached, will a recurrence become less likely or more?  Now that an Administration has demonstrated the ease with which supposition and fear can be exploited to dupe and stampede the institutions of democracy and the American people into rash action, will this provide a cautionary check against or a road map for new abuses?  If the latter, then the thousands of fallen will truly have died in vain.