The war won't go away

The war has receded from the headlines, displaced by the Presidential campaign, the credit implosion and resultant threat of recession, and the latest politicosexual contratemps in New York ... and especially the false but oft-repeated assertion that the "surge is working." Recent days have brought several grim reminders that the war won't go away, but will continue to demand our attention for quite some time to come.

First, there's the unending horror of the war itself. Yes, the number of American casualties is down, but yesterday's deadly blasts killing eight American soldiers was a distressing reminder that it continues. In fact, about as many American soldiers died over the past five full months as during the five months following George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" photo-op on the U.S.S. Lincoln nearly four and a half years earlier, and quite a few more were wounded.

The horror has been even worse for Iraqis. Five were killed by a suicide bomber in Dhuluiya today and another ten in Kut, plus 16 in a bombed out bus near Basra and two political leaders in Falluja with five more killed by gunmen in Mosul. The day before, gunmen killed a doctor in Basra, a minibus bomb killed one in Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up two in Muqdadiya, three were murdered in Mosul, and a suicide bomber killed a Sunni leader northeast of Baghdad. Last Thursday bombs killed 68 shoppers in Baghdad, on a day when other attacks killed one in the al-Waziriya district, four in Basra, and four more in Mosul. Day after day, Iraqis are being killed and maimed. Perhaps it's at a lower rate than during the worst of 2007, but let us not pretend the suffering is going away.

Meanwhile, let's face it, there's precious little evidence the Iraqis have been using the the surge as cover for forging the democratic, pluralistic government of national unity they need to create peace ... and without which, the war can never end on any terms remotely resembling real peace.

Then there's the cost. The Nobel laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz, writing with Linda Bilmes, released a study this past week forecasting that the total cost of the war will be around $3 trillion when all the indirect costs are computed, including costs as diverse as long-term care for injured veterans and debt service costs for the massive borrowing the administration is using to finance the war. In the short term, the we're squandering treasure that could be used to address such pressing needs as funding national health care, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, improving schools, developing energy alternatives, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and balancing the budget. In the long-term, the war is seriously jeopardizing our economic future, constraining our ability to deal with other problems and handicapping us in the world economic and political arena.

And then there's the utter lack of any reasonable hope that it will end within the foreseeable future. The administration and its sycophants foresee no end to the war until the distant golden day when "victory" -- undefined and unknowable -- is finally attained.they'll be long gone while the war still drags on and poisons all aspects of national life.

As Stiglitz and Bilmes note, "the United States will be paying the price of Iraq for decades to come ... and the cost will grow the longer we remain." The time to end this awful war is now.

Note: this was orginially posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 11 March 2008