A Sorry Bunch

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

Am I the only one repulsed when I see former Vice President Dick Cheney and other architects of the 2013 invasion going on national media blaming President Obama for the recent military reversals in Iraq?    These "neo-cons" took the wheel of Bush foreign policy after 9/11 and managed to transform international support into resentment and domestic consensus into bitter divisions.   A previously contained tyrant, Saddam Hussein, was replaced by religious factions looking to even the score with each other after the Iraqi Army was disbanded.   Iran gained influence as their Shiite allies eventually shut out the majority Sunnis in forming a government.   Now an al-Qaeda-inspired faction (only more radical) called ISIS has been allowed to gain ground as they exploit Sunni anger.   Add 4,500 American military deaths and tens of thousands wounded, not to mention two trillion dollars spent on a war instigated by Washington militarists promising we would be welcomed as liberators and could pay for the war selling Iraqi oil.   Saddam's weapons of mass destruction never turned up either.

That all matters little to the politicians and media who dutifully followed the doctrine of a Bush administration that got it wrong every step of the way. Some of these people are even calling for a new Iraq invasion and blast Obama for removing all US troops.   For one thing, the thoroughly incompetent and corrupt Iraqi government refused to agree to a continued US military presence.   Our troops exited Iraq after paying with blood, but now a new threat looms to this country's mostly troubled existence.   The Sunni-Shiite fight has been raging since shortly after the time of the prophet Mohammed himself.    At the very least, America's Iraq War hawks could admit major mistakes were made.   To listen to their arrogance and lack of any sense of Middle East history, "sorry" isn't a word we can expect to hear.