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WHY IS AMERICA STILL IN IRAQ?: The answer is ... pride.
Petraeus called American progress in Iraq "fragile and reversible," implying that the presence of our 140,000 troops is the only factor keeping the country from collapsing into complete chaos.
He and the Bush administration seem to be mystified as to why the puppet government we installed, headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki, cannot take command of the bureaucracy and the situation on the ground.
The fact is that if Malaki and his allies had the ability to run the Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein and the Sunnis would not have dominated it in the first place. No indigenous people will respect a puppet government installed by an occupying force, nor should they, and the Iraqis are no exception. The Bushites clearly need to read their history books or simply use common sense.
Neoconservatives like William Kristol and Robert Kagan had been advocating for the overthrow of Hussein's regime for years. In a New York Times commentary in January 1998, Kristol and Kagan wrote: "Saddam Hussein must go," chiding the Clinton administration for not being aggressive enough with the Iraqi leader.
Although unsuccessful in getting Clinton to do their bidding, Kristol, Hagan and other neocons continued to beat the drums for unilateral intervention after George W. Bush was elected in 2000. Then came 9/11 and the horror of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil killing thousands of innocent Americans.
With the American people still frightened about the potential for more terrorist attacks and the short-sightedness of Bush and his comrade Dick Cheney, who believes it's okay to go to war as long as he can be granted deferments to avoid wearing the uniform himself, neocons now had their opening. They knew there was no evidence whatsoever linking Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, but they apparently didn't care. Bush and Cheney orchestrated something that had previously been antithetical to U.S. foreign policy -- they invaded a country which presented no threat to the U.S. and overthrew the leader of a sovereign nation.
Meanwhile, the American body count continues to rise; our debt to the Chinese, who are financing this war, continues to mount; and America's image around the world continues to deteriorate. To make matters worse, now Bush, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman are rattling their sabers and threatening a pre-emptive strike against Iran.
The Bible says: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Bush, who confesses to have had a religious conversion years ago, and America's next president might do well to study the book of Proverbs before continuing on this ill-advised course of military aggression against countries that are not threatening the United States.
Gwen Richardson is an entrepreneur and author based in Houston, Texas. Her new book is titled "Why African Americans Can't Get Ahead: And How We Can Solve It With Group Economics." (source: Taylor Media Services)
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