Iraq: Has It Been Worth The Cost? (by Corey Thompson)
By Corey Thompson, filed in Corey Thompson, General on Mar.09, 2009
“Iraq: Has It Been Worth The Cost?”
By: Corey Thompson, “The Thirsty Quill”
4,257…
That’s the number of American lives lost in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March of 2003. You can, of course, adjust that number slightly up or down, depending on which “source” you’re getting your facts from.
Hundreds of billions…
That’s the unknown (yet highly-speculated) amount of U.S. Dollars that have been poured into the Iraqi Theatre (during the same period of time) to prop up the operation.
Six years.
Has it been worth it?
We all have an opinion on the matter, regardless of which side of the political aisle we take refuge in. Yet, it is an interesting question to ponder when considering the human sacrifice and financial expenditures that run parallel to the results that have been achieved.
This is an opinion-based article, written for an opinion-based blog, with the expectation of receiving opinion-based responses. I truly doubt that what I write today will have any impact on the strong preconceived notions and opinions that many of you possess. Yet, I will do my best to share my view. I hope that you will do the same.
Here is how some of you see it…
Thousands of American lives lost…hundreds of billions of U.S. Dollars spent…a nation that remains chaotic and incapable of running herself…missing WMD’s…civilian casualties…a war-torn horizon against a backdrop of Third World struggle…
That’s one way to look at it.
Or…
How I see it…
A dictatorship overthrown…a ruthless killer dethroned, tried, and executed…the possibility that the ideals of FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, LIBERTY, and INDEPENDENCE can ring true for those who have never known their sweet song…hundreds of thousands of women who can vote for the first time…hundreds of thousands of men who can vote for the first time without fear, and who know that their vote will be counted…scores of towns and villages that will never again fear a biological or chemical rocket attack upon their people at the hands of their own leader…a Constitutional form of government…representation…democratic values and virtues…new schools…new roads…new hospitals…humanitarian aid to those who had long been denied…a future of the people, by the people, and for the people of Iraq…
…brought on by the commitment and sacrifice of the United States of America…
…the guarantors of democracy, the guardians of liberty, and the eternal watchdog of freedom at home, and abroad…all of which are certainly worth any cost.
It’s hard to put a price tag on our role in the world, and what we’ve done for so many.
And that my friends, is non-negotiable.
March 10th, 2009 on 10:07 pm
Very True Corey.
It is hard to put a price tag on our role in the world. We certainly do more than anyone else in the name of charity and goodwill; that is for certain.
It is very difficult to argue that massive amounts of progress have been made in this volatile region, and at this point there is very little motive to re-hash the (pre war) motives since we are defiantly making progress unveiling a more secular, westernized, Iraq in a region seemingly frozen in time. That is, as always, if the dead deserve no explanation. If every disfigured child (who was shocked and awed) needn’t an honest explanation about the payoff for his infirmity or why he or she is an orphan, then no, we really needn’t take on the non palatable task of breaking down the real motives.
I am glad you gave the disclaimer on opinions, that will spare the quill me having to give one.
As you started your opinion with others opinions I will do the same.
Some view President George W Bush as a “great liberator”, a raw, straight shooting leader, who was doing the Iraqis a big favor by delivering democracy with just a little blood on the sheets as he led us to “Mission Accomplished” in San Diego Harbor.
Well, I happen to believe, just by playing out all the motives, not to mention the only task that are still on budget in Iraq; that the real motivation was to have a long term “Military Industrial Complex” centered square in the center of where the largest amounts of crude oil is in the world. Now, I can here you now typing away how I have been sucked into the ugly liberal media, and that those ladies holding up there purple fingers are worth all the loss of life and capital. And that is fine. But what I ask all of you to do is follow the money, follow the contracts, follow the complete cluster %(#% that led to the missing billions of dollars. Missing, meaning gone. (Yeah, Billions)Call your local Southern Senator to tell you how high that stacks in ones.
I believe in liberty, I believe in democracy, I don’t let my patriotism get enmeshed with capitalism as much as some here at the quill do, but I love the idea of what our Country stands for. However, I also know what money and power do, more than any other combination:
They corrupt.
And this war was corrupt from start to the moments when it will be finished. If ever it does finish. We can doll it up however we want to, and fortunately for the revisionist; we live in the era of the short attention spans. Sadly for the dead, there is no risk of having to defend this war anymore. We will have an Embassy that you can fit the Vatican in, and Iraqi’s will hopefully remind us what a young democratic nation without a two party system can do.(oh wait) never mind.