Iraq War: ‘How does this end?’

Twenty years on, that question has become: ‘How does our exasperation with the failure of nation-building end?

Iraq War: ‘How does this end?’
Original: Clipper Media News

13 March 2023 | James Porteous | Clipper Media News

‘Tell me, how does this end?’ asked US general David Petraeus during the first push (aka war) to Baghdad in 2003.

Twenty years later, the ‘international’ world is still asking the same question. Or perhaps it would be better to say that we are once again, and once again, and once again asking the same question. And the answer? Who the hell knows? They sure as hell don’t know.

Most people do not ‘learn’ anything about past failures unless they are forced to do so.

In the ‘old’ days, it was, at least marginally, the responsibility of the media to force militaries around the world to answer the question ‘how does this end’ long before the ships and planes started transporting military equipment to whatever far-off-land was to become the new hell hole.

Those days are gone. So we have foolishly accepted as fact that in war, there is no past, no future, no talk about ‘how does this end.’

It is no different today. Ask anyone in the US administration ‘how does Ukraine end’ and they will deliver some simplistic, oven-ready answer about ‘Putin’ and ‘freedom’ and not a single word about the ever-increasing number of past military failures.

And this will not change unless someone makes them change. That truth is highlighted below in a ‘long read’ about the ‘history’ of the US involvement in Iraq. It is an 18-23 minute piece and it mentions Afghanistan exactly once:

‘The unilateral US withdrawal from Afghanistan, instigated by Donald Trump and then pursued by his successor, Joe Biden, was born of an exasperation with the failure of nation-building exemplified by Iraq.’

The failure of nation-building exemplified by Iraq. Think about that for a moment. The failure of nation-building.

If there were a US Dictionary of Diplomacy, the term would surely be listed as the first cousin of ‘regime change.’ Beside a photo of John Bolton. Just for laughs.

So over the course of 20+ years, perhaps a million innocent lives were lost, and perhaps a trillion dollars or more were thrown down the well-hole, and the lesson we are meant to take away is: It was a failure of nation-building.

Of course, the exact same story is playing out on the front pages every day (well, less and less so as time moves on) so we can see that the exasperation with the failure of nation-building exemplified by Iraq and Afghanistan, and Syria, and Yemen will one day add the name of Ukraine.

So we must now ask a variation of the main question: How does our exasperation with the failure of nation-building end?

And 20 years hence -if we, as a planet, are still able to do so – will we dutifully look back and proudly assert that, no, they did not know how it would end, and no, they had no right to once again try let alone fail in the absurd task of nation-building or regime change, but we should take comfort in the fact that, although hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of innocent people may have died, that we meant well?

Fighting for peace through the act of war. As usual.

The merchants of death are fighting on our behalf to assert their God-given right to arm the world and line the pockets of shareholders.

And they will continue to demand that we take pride in knowing that we helped send the children of said shareholders to college and summer camps in order to continue living the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

Surely it is time to stand up and ask, once and for all: How much longer will the rest of us, exasperated with the failure of nation-building, allow our sons and daughters to fight and die for Lockheed Martin?

We better hope that day comes soon.

James Porteous | Clipper Media News

READMORE