Fifteen Years, Twelve Years

I started this blog twelve years ago this month, three years after the U.S. invaded Iraq on spurious premises of finding weapons of mass destruction, and on a heady revenge kick in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001. 

I wrote about many things, but often I vented about the war in Iraq: about those spurious reasons for going to war, about the probability that the war would go awry, about the cavalier approach to the occupation of Iraq, about the horrible effects on U.S. servicemen and women and their families, and the huge, ghastly tragedy and cost of life in Iraq itself. 

Few images summed up better what a disastrous foreign policy adventure it was, than the photos of interim ruler of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, in a business suit paired with army boots, above, with Donald Rumsfeld...

Today's New York Times: Fifteen Years Ago, America Destroyed My Country:

No one knows for certain how many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago. Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again. The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago, I watched Mr. Bush on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” dancing and talking about his paintings.) The pundits and “experts” who sold us the war still go on doing what they do. I never thought that Iraq could ever be worse than it was during Saddam’s reign, but that is what America’s war achieved and bequeathed to Iraqis.

Sigh.