Sometimes I wonder whether the profuse thanks that
many Americans shower on the troops shouldn't instead
be an apology. After all, I think it's a fair
assumption that those who do the thanking were not
among those who opposed the U.S. government's
invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as
libertarians did. Instead, my bet is that most of the
thankers were among the most ardent supporters of
those military actions.
Let's focus on Iraq. Let's look at the situation from
the perspective of an individual soldier, especially
one who is now permanently disabled or disfigured. Was
it worth it? To answer that question, we need to
examine exactly what was accomplished in Iraq.
Last Saturday, the New York Times published an article
entitled, "Flow of Arms to Syria Through Iraq
Persists, to U.S. Dismay." The article pointed out how
the Iraqi government continues to permit Iranian
airplanes to fly over Iraq in order to deliver weapons
to the Assad regime in Syria. That's the dictatorial
regime that the U.S. government is trying to oust from
power.
Needless to say, U.S. officials are extremely unhappy
with the Iraqi government. According to the Times, "To
the disappointment of the Obama administration,
American efforts to persuade the Iraqis to randomly
inspect the flights have been largely unsuccessful."
So, let's see: Doesn't this mean that American
soldiers sacrificed their lives and limbs in order to
bring a regime into power in Iraq that is more closely
aligned with Iran, an archenemy of the U.S.
government, than it is with the U.S. government?
Of course, people might say that the goal of the Iraq
invasion was simply to bring a sovereign and
independent regime into power, a goal that that has
obviously been accomplished given Iraq's refusal to
comply with U.S. requests to inspect those Iranian
airplanes.
But isn't that being a bit naïve? Isn't the purpose of
every U.S. regime change operation to install a regime
that is loyal to the U.S. government? After all, the
U.S. government never targets dictatorships that are
loyal and submissive to the U.S. government, such as
those in Bahrain, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. It targets
those dictatorships that are recalcitrant and
independent of U.S. government control.
Anyway, if bringing into power sovereign and
independent regimes was the goal, would that truly be
worth the lives and limbs of U.S. soldiers? When
people thank the troops for their service in Iraq, are
they really expressing gratitude for their bringing
into existence a regime that is now closely aligned
with Iran?
Moreover, I think it's important to bear in mind the
type of regime that now rules Iraq. It is a crooked,
corrupt dictatorial regime that kills, maims,
tortures, and incarcerates people without due process
of law. Isn't that what Saddam Hussein did? When
people thank the troops, are they expressing gratitude
for their having replaced one brutal dictatorial
regime in Iraq with another?
What about the "keeping us safe" rationale? It's hard
to see how the invasion of Iraq has made us safer than
we were before the invasion. After all, neither the
Iraqi government nor the Iraqi people ever attacked
the United States or even threatened to do so. Iraq
had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
That means that all the Iraqi people who were killed,
tortured, abused, and maimed during the invasion and
occupation of their country were innocent of having
taken any aggressive actions against the United
States.
Instead, it was the U.S. government, specifically
through its military forces, that was the aggressor in
Iraq. It was the attacker in the conflict while Iraq
was the defender. At worst, the Iraqi people were
guilty of resisting the invasion and occupation of
their land by a foreign aggressor, something that many
Americans would do if the United States were invaded
and occupied by a foreign aggressor.
One would think that when a much more powerful
military force aggresses against a weaker country and
kills and maims hundreds of thousands of innocent
people in the process and destroys much of the
country, that's the type of thing that engenders anger
and hatred, not peace and love, against the aggressor.
Such being the case, how does that make Americans
safer? Don't the survivors of those who have been
killed have the incentive for revenge? Don't the
maimed have reason to retaliate? Don't people who have
lost their homes to bombs and missiles have reason to
never forget it.
It's not a coincidence that while Iranian officials
feel safe to travel around Iraq, not so with U.S.
officials. In fact, not one single U.S. official has
taken his family to Iraq for vacation since 2003. When
President Obama flies into the country, which is rare,
it's done as a day visit—he never spends the night
there. President Bush doesn't dare show his face in
Iraq, not even for a few hours, much less for an
extended visit. At the risk of belaboring the obvious,
that's because it's not safe.
The discomforting truth is that U.S. soldiers killed,
died, maimed, and destroyed in Iraq for nothing.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate for Americans to
apologize to the troops than to thank them for their
service?
Jacob Hornberger
is founder and president of the Future of Freedom
Foundation.
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