For some reason most Americans have no trouble forgetting our original rationale for unilaterally invading Iraq in the spring of 2003. The threat was imminent, the danger thoroughly documented and the need to act with extreme violence undeniably strong only 19 months after 9/11. Afghanistan didn’t satisfy the American public’s hunger for massive military action in Muslim lands that any politician knew would be gold in the 2004 presidential election. The only problem is that everybody is forgetting that the threat turned out to be anything but imminent, the thoroughly documented danger actually completely circumstantial evidence that lowered the global stature and respect of Colin Powell, one of our greatest statesman.
Now that the need to act with extreme violence isn’t as strong nine years after 9/11, we can dimly remember the sudden shift in strategy that occurred once we were ass deep in Baghdad blood. No longer was a dangerous and powerful state being subdued just in the nick of time to avoid a second 9/11-like blow. What weapons of mass destruction? The Iraq war became a brilliant strategic wedge through which to shove democracy and freedom down the throat of the middle east region (I don’t think America originally signed up for that), but this new custom made strategy that conveniently melded to the circumstances of the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq had another side to it. To explain the fantastic surge in Jihadist volunteers flocking to their once in a lifetime chance to be martyred in Iraq the new rationale for the war also claimed to be a magnet for Muslim fundamentalists that otherwise would’ve traveled to American shores.
In reality, we spent seven years adding more instability to a region that desperately needed American leadership, not an American temper tantrum. Slogging around Iraq for seven years breaking things and killing people has left an indelible mark on both eastern and western cultures at the dawn of the twenty first century. The well of anti-American sentiment and therefore anti-American propaganda has now been replenished and deepened for generations to come. Troops in Saudi Arabia and American support for Israel may still pack the extremist mosques with fresh Mujahedin, but there are also children growing up with their more extreme feelings towards the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda is simply a harvester of religiously warped canon fodder, but they can’t grow this fodder on their own. We just gave them seven years of religious fertilizer and I’m not too excited about what they’re going to grow with it.
Links about the Iraq War
