We Don't Know Why We're in Iraq? ...Really?

Shockingly enough, I still keep seeing people from even the major news media and political figures declaring that we don't know why we are in Iraq, or that it was all a mistake, and that maybe Afghanistan was justified, but that's hard to explain too.

But it's not. None of that is true.

Maybe we could get by without the politicians knowing or understanding the major events of the day – after all, they're politicians, not civil servants. Though, it can (and should) be argued that we'd all be better off if they did know.

However, it is disturbing that the news outfits don't understand. They've had ten years to wrap their heads around it now, and that is their job, after all.

Worse, though, even though they don't understand, and state that they don't understand, they then try to explain those events to the public. Whether they are informing, justifying, or insinuating, it doesn't matter – if they don't understand, then they can't explain. That's just a given.

(Of course, their statements that they don't understand might just be another marketing or political ploy – they are a business, after all. But that's a question for another day.)

So, I'll lay it out, here and now. That way it's there for everyone. And it might also provide a brief primer on how to listen to politicians.

Of our stated reasons and justifications for going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and they were many and ever-changing, only one was stated every time. Only one was stated from the first press release to the public all the way to the opening of conflict and on past the first battles to the initial postulations of opening up a wider front (which eventually collapsed when the first two conflicts dragged on past their initial political timetables).

Only one reason. And in political speak, the language of politicians, that means that was the reason.

So what it? The reason that is the true reason for the US being there – A radical transformation of the Middle East.

The concept, in case you missed it, was to “drain the global swamp.” In other worlds, to end the threat of terrorism, the US was going to remake the world, or at least those parts that its leaders didn't like. Iraq was just first. Iraq was to be used as a staging ground for invading other countries of the Middle East – Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were being kicked around in the press in the glory-filled days after first conquest. And it wasn't to have stopped there, but was to have continued on until all of the Middle East was made Democratic, Capitalist, Middle Class, and safe.

It was audacious, radical, even daring (which politicians don't usually like to be). And it could never, ever have worked.

Why not?

1. Because it was also blindingly, glaringly, horrifically unsound strategy. The military stated it from the beginning – you would need hundreds of thousands of troops to seize and then SECURE a single country. Not tens of thousands. Not thousands, such as the US attempted. Hundreds of thousands. Less can CONQUER, but it cannot SECURE. For this plan to have succeeded even with the two countries already conquered, much less the stated grand plan, there would have had to have been one of three things: a draft, a large alliance, or a radical system of violent control. America wasn't prepared to commit to any of those, so the whole affair was doomed from the start. But any general who stated so was summarily fired, until no one left spoke up anymore. Only someone completely pie-eyed would start a military operation by firing all the military leaders until you were left with only yes-men.

2. People don't like to be conquered. It doesn't where in the world you go, that stays a fact. Sure, a lot of nations would rather their leader weren't forced on them, and wouldn't mind if they (s)he were deposed for them, as long as deposing is the only "aid" the foreign nations were going to give. But that's never all, as the people of Iraq and Afghanistan so rightly anticipated. There were strings. America wanted a say, an equal say, a more-than equal say actually, in the governments that were to organized after those deposings. After all, America was the one who deposed them, so it was only fitting that they should have that say.

3. With America wanting to guarantee long-term stability in its conquered nations – or pacify its colonies, to give this the old Roman Imperial-style taste it has earned – America had the need of staying in these nations for at the least a hundred years. That's how long pacification takes. But America is a democracy, even if a Republic-style Democracy, and a Democracies citizens tend to become increasingly irate when wars last longer than a few years, particularly when the blood and loot aren't equalishly distributed. America was never going to stand around for the hundred years necessary to pacify its conquests.

4. Democracy is not Freedom. I can't emphasize this enough. Yes, the two often are together. Yes, the two often work well together. But Democracy does NOT NOT NOT produce freedom. In a Democracy, one half of the population plus one can commit the other half to slavery. What produces freedom? Constitutional law. You can't go into a country, hand them the ability to vote, and expect radical change. Voting makes a nice photo-op, but it doesn't change any of the fundamental of a society.

5. And the reason, most of all, democratic nations also commit terrorism. To prove, one need go no further than Ireland and Northern Britain, where two democratic nations have been committing acts of terrorism against each other for generations now, but I will. Consider all of those nations of South America and Central America, where terrorism ruled for five decades. Or all of those nations of Eastern Europe, where the US so recently fought a war in Bosnia, where inter-tribal acts of terrorism have been going on for centuries. Making a country democratic doesn't stop terrorism; it just and only gives that people the right to vote. They could even vote to all be terrorists. Which means that the central premise of the entire affair was deeply, atrociously, abominably wrong.

The whole concept was based on false assumptions, blind belief, and naked hubris. And every step of the way only layered on the arrogantly ignorant stupidity.

But what is done can't be undone, and no one wants to be the one to abandon the wars and then have another terrorist attack happen. Even if the two events were in NO way related, they would still be associated in everyone's minds, and everyone would forever wonder if….

And on top of that, leaving now would essentially assign a victory to terrorists, because even though the terrorist enemies of the US aren't much involved in either war, the US has made both wars "about" terrorism, which thus, by our own doing, would give those terrorist the victory. A victory they had no real part in earning.

And on top of all that, also has the possibility of emboldening other nations currently under US sway to revolt, having seen these two nations successfully fight off US hegemony.

That’s why we're still there.