US troops remain on Iraqi soil. US troops continue to die in Iraq.
What part of "the Iraq War has not ended" confuses some Americans?
The Iraqi people suffer. The protests have dropped off -- they continue but they are smaller -- due to the coronavirus threat. But if economists predicting hyperinflation for Iraq are correct, the large protests that began last fall will be even larger.
Too many Americans ignore what has happened in Iraq, what continues to take place. Some of those idiots are rushing to praise Bully Boy Bush and reinvent him as someone worthy of praise. Bully Boy Bush deserves only condemnation.
Chris Danko reviews that basics in five Tweets:
Right before the United States invaded Iraq, 65% of the country supported a secular government. During the occupation of Iraq the United States •Fired 500,000 Iraqi state workers •Attempted to privatize state companies •Turned reconstruction over to US companies 1/5
Local democracy was suppressed. Elected leaders were replaced with handpicked US candidates. Only 15,000 Iraqis were hired by US companies to rebuild their own country. After the first 6 months, a majority of Iraqis (70%) supported Islamic law as the basis of the state. 2/5
4 million Iraqis were forced to leave their homes. About half the population was left without clean drinking water. Less than 40% of children attended schools, in a country where the pre-war literacy rate was 89%. Not to mention over 150,000 civilian deaths. Abu Ghraib. 3/5
We imposed a new constitution on Iraq by force. The old constitution had been drafted in 1970 and was perfectly workable, it had just been ignored by Saddam Hussein. This is what Moqtada al-Sadr cited when he formed the Mahdi Army AFTER peaceful protests yielded no results 4/5
Rehabilitating George W. Bush or even comparing him favorably to the current president seems myopic. Nothing this president has done measures up to the devastation visited upon Iraq. Don't mistake this for Trump-praise (not destroying a country is a low bar to clear). 5/5
