A veteran's remorse: what have we done to Iraq?

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/iraq-veteran-remorse-what-have-we-done


A British soldier patrols the northern suburbs of the Iraqi city of Basra. Photograph: Dave Clark/AFP/Getty images

Iraq. We've all been there by now, 10 years having passed since that heady dash across the Mesopotamian sands in March 2003.

One of my fonder memories of time spent there comes from a midday patrol through the streets of Al Amarah, in 2004, a town in the southeastern province of Maysan. The temperature was the wrong side of 40C, lines of salt from evaporated sweat traced my desert combats, and every muscle ached.

After halting the patrol and taking a knee, I saw an Iraqi man appear from a small shack. He hurried over to me, beaming and carrying a metal tray, on which sat a tiny glass of steaming tea, swirling with sugar.

"Shukran jazelan," I said appreciatively and through cracked lips, and savoured the best tasting brew I've ever had.

[RedstDem]

1. We blew it

I would have liked to see more officers in the US have refused deployment.
that's what really bothers me to this day, that war was so illegal, and fake and so easy to see thru, I wonder why more people just said no.

[GeorgeGist]

2. You done to Iraq ...

About what the smart people predicted.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Sometimes officers need to disobey their commander-in-chief

Years ago, I read a book called German Resistance to Hitler. It talked about the lead-up to Hitler's attempts to conquer all of Europe, when his generals told him that what he was planning was impossible, could not be sustained even if he was initially successful, was against international law, and would lead to the destruction of Germany, which had only just recovered from World War I. But Hitler was insistent. He wanted to invade Poland.

The generals finally decided that (in the pre-Nazi period) they had taken an oath to carry out the will of the commander-in-chief, so they had no choice but to obey.

[4Q2u2]

4. We the People

None of us swore allegiance to Goerge Bush specifically in our oaths. We gave our word to the American people that when we were needed we would be there, even if it meant our deaths. For a lot of us that moral obligation to the country and more to the people we love is the reason there was not total disobedience to the orders of the Iraq War. It was sanctioned by the American people, for good or for ill, that was the mandate. It is the responsibility of the American people to use THEIR Services in proper fashion, not the other way around. You abdicate your responsibility as a citizen when you want the military to disavow their solemn oaths to the citizens of this country. If the War was illegal then it was made illegal by the American people and it is the American people who have to fix it. That is why Civilians have the ultimate and final say over the Military.

I hope someday that Iraq will heal their wounds and prosper under a good and benevolent Government that will look out for all of its people. It seemed to me that the people in the Cities that held the power and were aligned with Saddam did not like our presence at all. Outside the cities, in the suburbs and farm land, people who were not allowed to have any power and suffered under Saddam had a whole different outlook towards us. I hope those people are doing well.

[dionysus]

5. it was bad before we went, and 10 times worse when we left.