The picture above is a Department of Defense picture of one of the last U.S. military vehicles to leave Iraq in 2011. At the time, the American public was breathing a sigh of relief -- believing that we were finally through with at least one of the two unnecessary wars George Bush got us into. It took 8 years and accomplished nothing (except to destabilize that country and destroy much of its infrastructure), but at least our troops were coming home.
Unfortunately, the joy of finally extricating ourselves from the occupation of Iraq was a bit premature. Recently the violence in that country has increased substantially -- as the rebel group ISIS is now trying to overthrow the Iranian-supported government of President Maliki. And as crazy as it sounds, the neocon elements in this country are now wanting us to re-engage in Iraq -- putting ourselves in the middle of their religious civil war.
Most Americans don't want our military to again become involved in Iraq, but that hasn't seemed to affect the politicians of either political party. While the Democrats don't want to jump back in with both feet again (like many of the GOP neocons want), most of our politicians seem to agree that we must do something to help the Maliki government (in spite of the fact that their closest friend is Iran).
President Obama originally said we would not be sending soldiers back to Iraq, but might use drones and war planes to do strategic bombing. Even that seemed silly to me, since neither side is really a friend to the United States. However, it only took a few days for President Obama to change his mind, and agree to send 300 special forces troops into Iraq as "advisors".
Now we learn that an additional 200 soldiers will be sent to Iraq -- to protect our embassy and the Baghdad airport. And they will be using Apache helicopters and drones (both offensive weapons). Frankly, this is starting to look like "mission creep" to me -- just like in Vietnam, where we started with a few advisors and eventually wound up with hundreds of thousands of troops in that country. How long is it going to take before it is announced that a few hundred more soldiers are needed in Iraq, and then a few thousand more to accomplish whatever mission we have there?
We need to put a halt to this right now. We shouldn't have a single soldier in Iraq, since we have no mission in that country that makes any sense. We are the cause of Iraq's current problems (with our ridiculous invasion and occupation), but no matter how many troops we send to that country (or how much bombing we do there) we are not going to solve Iraq's problems. They must do that for themselves. Involving ourselves back in Iraq may make some politicians happy (thinking they are doing something), but it is a bad mistake -- and it will do nothing but create more enemies for this country.
We need to disengage again -- and bring all of our troops back home.
