Bloody month after bloody month

When I was twenty-three, I lived in Fullerton, California. This past Thursday, June 28, a twenty-three year old from Fullerton was killed by an IED in Baghdad, along with four of his compatriots. With their deaths, the total number of Americans killed in Iraq in June reached 101. The month before, it was 126. The month before that, 104. Eighty or more have been killed in each of the past seven months -- the first time that's happened since the war began. So far during this war, there have been eight months in which over 100 Americans were killed; five of those have been during the past nine months. The past nine months have been the deadliest of the war for American soldiers. As I write, the American death toll stands at 3,580, with another 25,830 wounded, but by the time you read this, the toll will be even worse. Meanwhile, the American armed forces are being stretched very, very thinly; soldiers are serving repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, often spending more than half their time there -- a level of service in the combat theater which far exceeds that of the American G.I. during World War II -- and their equipment is wearing out, to the point that it's doubtful that we would be protected should a real military emergency arise.

And for what? The situation in Iraq is getting worse rather than better. The surge is not working. The so-called Iraqi national government is paralyzed and ineffective. The Iraqi military is ineffective and plagued by desertion; published reports suggest that a large number of the arms we have supplied to them have gone missing along with the AWOL recruits, and one can only morbidly speculate about the uses those weapons will be put to. There is no peaceful interlude for the Iraqi government to get its act together. The Iraqi resistance (or insurgents, or terrorists, or dead-enders -- whatever you want to call them) seem to adapt to our every change in tactics and strategy. Iraq was once fairly secularized and integrated compared to other Muslim states in the Middle East, but it's coming apart at the seams as sectarian rivalries wreak havoc and "ethnic cleansing" is epidemic. A global survey of failed and failing states has concluded that that Iraq is second in the world in that category. Approximately 50% of the Iraqi workforce is unemployed, and we know the unemployed form the reservoir from which insurgents and revolutionary warriors are traditionally drawn in failed and failing states. Most Iraqis want us out. And in the process, America's standing and influence in the world has sunk to abyssal depths; that part of the world which doesn't hate or mock us, distrusts us. It is hard to imagine how we will dig ourselves out of the hole we have created, or how long that will take, or what the consequences will be.

The war isn't just bleeding Iraq and the United States; both countries are hemorrhaging. Some argue that the United States cannot leave Iraq because Iraq would then descend into chaos. They would be right, except that Iraq is already descending into chaos and there appears to be nothing the United States can do to prevent that awful consequence of this tragic, unnecessary, ill-conceived and illegal war. Those who criticize calls for the withdrawal of American forces are utterly bereft of alternatives; nothing we are doing in Iraq works, and no credible strategy is being offered which could produce a result better than withdrawal. Nor is it certain, or perhaps even likely, that the situation for Iraqis themselves will be worse if we leave, than if we continue the failed policies we currently employ. Our morally bankrupt administration has sowed the seeds of disaster, and we and the Iraqis will be reaping the harvest for decades.

The time to end the war was before it began, but every day this war continues makes it worse. Bring the troops home. Now.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks on 1 July 2007