A number of people want to pretend that Barack Obama ended the war. He did not. He is now out of office and the Iraq War continues. In fact, in some ways it is worse now.
This week in 2017, the US dropped a 500 lbs bomb on a crowded residential area of West Mosul, Iraq, unleashing a massive explosion, which killed nearly 300 civilians, many of them children. The strike was the US’s most deadly air strike for civilians in 25 years.
Grasp that. The most deadly air strike.
And it was last year. Not 2003, last year.
Or grasp that seven more US service members died in Iraq last week.
The Defense Dept released the names of those killed in the US helicopter crash in Iraq:
The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of seven airmen who were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. They died March 15 when an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crashed in western Iraq. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Killed was:
Captain Mark K. Weber, 29, of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was assigned to the 38th Rescue Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. For more information, media may contact the 23rd Wing public affairs office at 229-257-4146.
Also killed were:
Captain Andreas B. O'Keeffe, 37, of Center Moriches, New York.
Captain Christopher T. Zanetis, 37, of Long Island City, New York.
Master Sergeant Christopher J. Raguso, 39, of Commack, New York.
Staff Sergeant Dashan J. Briggs, 30, of Port Jefferson Station, New York.
All four were assigned to the 106th Rescue Wing at the Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base, New York. For more information, media may contact the New York National Guard public affairs office at 518-786-4581.
Also killed were:
Master Sergeant William R. Posch, 36, of Indialantic, Florida.
Staff Sergeant Carl P. Enis, 31, of Tallahassee, Florida.
Both were assigned to the 308th Rescue Squadron, Air Force Reserve, at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. For more information, media may contact the 920th Rescue Wing public affairs office at 321-615-0329.
When does it end?
When the people say "Enough!"
But that can't happen without media coverage.
And there's very little media coverage -- especially from the so-called 'independent' media. If you doubt us, check out these:
None of these so-called left outlets -- SOCIALIST WORKER, THE NATION, IN THESE TIMES, THE PROGRESSIVE -- could be bothered to note Iraq -- not even on the 15th anniversary.
The politicians and the media pretend the Iraq War ended long ago.
It didn't. And as Andrew Bacevich (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS) points out:
On the 15th anniversary of the
start of the Iraq War, here’s a fact worth contemplating: In the
presidential election of 2016, Donald Trump got the blood sacrifice
vote. More specifically, communities
that paid a high price for the Iraq War in terms of casualties tended
to vote for Trump. In communities where the preference was for letting
someone else’s sons and daughters do the fighting, Hillary Clinton
prevailed.
Allow me to posit an
interpretation of this fact. While many issues divided the electorate in
2016, the Iraq War was prominent among them. To be clear, the division
was not between Americans who
had supported the war and those who had opposed it. Rather, the crucial
division was between those inclined to forget the war and move on and
those for whom the war still sticks in their craw.
Hillary Clinton was the preferred
candidate of the forget-and-move-on camp. Clinton had voted for the
war, then disavowed it, and even today shows little sign of grasping its
significance. Yet that
camp also included the several Republicans who unsuccessfully competed
against Trump for their party’s nomination.
They think it doesn't matter but it does.
As Robert F. Sommer (TRUTHOUT) observes:
The US presence in Iraq may be smaller now, but we are still there, as well as in Afghanistan, with no end in sight, and those countries have devolved into the very chaos about which not only civilians, but a number of high-ranking military officials warned the Bush administration. But even as most of the US discovered too late that we'd been conned on Iraq, we have continued the pattern of self-destruction that got us into both Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place.
The quagmire is now wider and deeper by magnitudes.