Sunday, August 22, 2010

“BORN TO LOSE, AND NOW I’M LOSIN’ YOU…”

8/22/10

Today’s (i.e., Sunday, 8/22’s, page 23) Chicago Tribune, in its report on the withdrawal of the last U.S. combat troops from Iraq, informed its readers

Instead, a mood of deep apprehension and bitterness is taking hold as Iraqis digest the reality that the Americans whom they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home…”

The paper quotes a Baghdad carpet seller:

I’m not happy at all. I’m worried. They’re leaving really early….The situation is getting worse every day. The politicians are inflaming the situation, there is a battle between them, and I am 100 percent certain it will be reflected in the streets.”

So we have once again involved ourselves in a war we cannot win, in more ways than one. Should we be surprised? Such pointless foreign entanglements in which victory is neither definable nor achievable have been the hallmark of U.S. foreign policy for at least the last fifty years.

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