If Iraqi insurgents attached Washington and took over the capitol and then had a ceremony where they stated, “Now the Iraq War is really over!” would we accept it? Would we be relieved that it was finally “over” the way we are now relieved? Would we accept it as in fact “over”?
Newspapers are filled with articles and editorials about how “the war is over” — but who says so? Obama? The U.S. government should be so lucky that what they put into motion in 2003 would simply be over when Obama says it is over.
How is it possible that they can turn “war” on and off like they are turning a switch on and off? I believe that a lot of us, including myself, look at the violence still going on in Iraq and have an uneasy, nervous feeling that nothing is in fact “over.”
Obama since day one has said, “Iraq was a mistake.” Yet once elected he did not stop the “mistake” until all of the previous president’s goals and objectives of the “mistake” were accomplished. That’s an odd way to carry on if you oppose it.
Obama called it a mistake because something has to be done every now and then to make it look like Democrats and Republicans are different. If Obama really does believe that attacking Iraq was a “mistake,” then what is “war” to him — simply armed conflict, military offensives without a justifiable reason?
That is how it has unfolded for this Democrat president once he was elected who on the campaign trail called attacking Iraq a “mistake.”
Frank Erickson lives in Minneapolis.
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