War

A reminder of the Iraq war disaster.

"As it happened, the country that we were going to garrison for a lifetime (to the thankful cheers of its inhabitants) while we imposed a Pax Americana on the rest of the region didn’t want us.  The government we essentially installed chose Iran as an ally and business partner.  The permanent bases we built to the tune of billions of dollars are now largely looted ghost towns.  The reconstruction of the country that we promoted proved worse than farcical, as former State Department official Peter Van Buren, author of the already classic book We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, reminds us.  And an outfit proudly carrying the al-Qaeda brand name, which did not exist in Iraq before our invasion, is now thriving in a still destabilized country.  Consider that just the start of a much longer list."

That's an interesting start in that it fails to mention any loss of life.