Greetings,
I hope you all have been surviving the recent overwhelming propaganda and rhetoric coming from "Inside the Beltway." If you're a futbol (soccer) fan, at least you have the World Cup to take your mind off the massive influx of BS coming from the talking heads.
I was going to avoid blogging about Iraq, but all the beating of the war drums from some of my fellow Iraq war veterans has disturbed me to the point of chiming in. Let me start by plainly and blatantly saying that we do not need to intervene for any reason whatsoever and there is not a single US interest in bringing stability back to Iraq (not even because we are the ones who caused the instability). Now, I know it is somewhat too late since we technically have already intervened on a small scale by sending in "military advisors." However, we should not go a step further, and here's why:
1. One more American life lost as a result of a war that was started on false premises is not worth it, nor is any other life for that matter. I too lost friends and guys who were literally like family to me in Iraq, but that doesn't mean that going back to Iraq and fixing this (even if we could) would make their loss be any less in vain. All the lives lost in Iraq were in vain and there is nothing we can do to change that. There was no global threat by Saddam Hussein or Al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden and his followers were never going to come to America and take away our liberties and implement Sharia Law. Saddam Hussein was never going to bomb American cities with his supposed arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction, or the "yellow cake" he was supposedly stockpiling to make them. More armed conflict won't fix any of our past indiscretions.
2. We've already lost our money there and we have no further economic advantage to gain from intervening (not that economic profits or losses should ever affect the decision to engage in armed conflict). Iraq doesn't have some huge market in which American businesses sell their goods and services. If Iraq decays into further chaos and turmoil, it doesn't mean that a mass of American citizens will lose their jobs and livelihood. And again, even if it did mean those things, that shouldn't justify us engaging in a war.
3. My last argument for the sake of conciseness is that we have proven we suck at fighting a counterinsurgency. Mr. Miagi once told Daniel-son; "I only fight the battles I know I can win." We don't know we can win that battle. If we know anything, we know we could lose it because we have already lost two counterinsurgencies. I know that is a hard pill to swallow for my fellow brainwashed veterans and those still on active duty, but it's true. We got beat. Maybe we never lost a gunfight with the enemy, but we lost the war. We need to cut our losses and go back to the drafting table, just like the Miami Heat are doing right now.
So as with all my blog posts, I try to propose a solution. In this scenario, it's kind of hard. My solution would be to do nothing, and to stop whatever we're doing now. There is no zero-sum game in global politics. Iran getting influence in Iraq doesn't mean the decline of the United States. If anything, Iran can exhaust their resources just like we did. They'll fail at a counterinsurgency just as we did. Let them. Their gain doesn't mean our loss. However, this type of proposal is usually labeled "isolationist," which is a dirty word in Washington, D.C. and among those that think the USA has to be involved in all international affairs and conflicts in order to maintain its status as a global power, actually THE global power.
We still are the only global power on Earth. Every other nation you hear the mainstream media fear mongering the population about is really just a regional power. China is the elephant in the room in Asia, Iran might be in the Middle East; however, Israel is a close contender. Russia is really only a threat to non-EU/non-NATO states in Europe, and I wouldn't even call them a threat.
So to get to the point, if we have to do something, it should not be militaristic in nature. We need to start and win a propaganda campaign in Iraq that makes ISIS look bad, or at least worse than Maliki's government. And we should do this using Iraqi personnel and resources only, meaning no "infidel American" faces passing out pro-Maliki propaganda on the streets of Iraq. Not sure why we didn't learn from our successful Cold War tactics of having the locals do all the legwork for us, but it definitely works better than bureaucrats from Washington trying to figure out how to operate in a foreign environment with an extremely different culture.
Lastly, to all of you who have said or thought; "Hey, we need to go finish the job!"... screw you. What job? What was our job in the first place? Ask yourself that. Use that brain in between your ears and think about those long hot days we spent in Iraq and the people who died or were injured. Then try to quantify what you really accomplished for the "Greater Good" and how it benefits anyone here at home.
Until next time my friends, stay conscious.
Semper Fi,
Chris Bentley
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