"What chance does a returnin' deceased war veteran have of finding a job...?"

The recent announcement that all US troops would be out of Iraq by January 2012 was greeted with a collective yawn by both the national media and an American public typically too pre-occupied with the question of whether or not Mormons came from outer space and who got kicked off Dancing With The Stars to care much about the war in Eye-rack anymore.   So in the interest of seizing upon and fully understanding and appreciating this historic moment, I think it’s necessary to re-visit Dubbya’s Folly, just to make sure we assign it its proper place in early 21^st century history.

Not since the heroic invasion of Panama by Bush the Elder to make sure his junior grade bag-man, Manuel Noriega kept quiet about being a laundromat for Contra drug money has there been a more obscenely stupid and wasteful exercise undertaken to prove the size of one’s dick.   Now after years of chaos and bloodletting in the name of hubris and ignorance – and despite desperate and intense lobbying by the pentagon – all but a small force retained for protection of the embassy will be removed. 

Oddly, this move has not precipitated any outcry or even any comment from the chicken hawk wing of the republican party nor from any of their tribe of candidates.   After the fuss they have made over Obama’s foreign policy in general and his handling of the dynamic and volatile situation in the Middle East in particular, this silence is puzzling.  Can it be there is so little to which one could point and triumphantly say, “There…see what we accomplished!” that they want no association with an episode which history will undoubtedly deem ill advised at best and perhaps tragically criminal at worst?   

Or maybe it is that they sense that the public is anesthetized to all things Iraqi; the waste and corruption and grim death that we have observed taking place in the background while most of us go on with our business.  We’ve lived through – we hope - the one great financial crisis of our lives – most of us – we have lost our homes and jobs and fortunes and are so preoccupied with getting from today to tomorrow that we hardly notice.  It seems pretty clear that there isn’t going to be much traction in barking about Obama’s Iraq policy; particularly in contrast to his handling of the economy.  So a day that may have seemed like a dream out of reach to many young Americans who served there doing their best in a preposterously shitty situation has been announced and most everyone is busy doing other things.  

From The Nation Magazine – “Withdrawing the 48,000 remaining US troops will save approximately $50 billion annually. The direct cost of the Iraq War over the past decade has been $800 billion, with indirect expenditures like veterans’ care pushing the long-term cost into the range of $6 trillion, in the estimate of scholars Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz. More than 4,500 Americans have lost their lives in the conflict, while more than 30,000 were wounded. Iraq itself remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with millions of dead, wounded and displaced people."

Mission accomplished, eh, George?  Whatever the justification of the month has been since the 2003 capture of Saddam, the will of the majority of Iraqis has finally become important enough to carry the day and beat back the sense of ownership and entitlement of the Pentagon warriors who today, behind closed doors, may be ruefully and wistfully smoking cigars and channeling the ghost of Patton, saying, “God forgive me but I do love it so.”  Well don’t go all nostalgic fellas; last I looked we are still sending drones to blast scampering Taliban bad guys in Afghanistan and Pakistan so you’ll still have jobs.

But in the face of continued republican attacks on government spending, is it inevitable that our post-war amnesia leads the pitifully underfunded VA to offer even fewer programs and benefits to returning veterans?  Obama’s announcement yesterday of a government / industry partnership to offer 25,000 jobs to returning veterans and their spouses is encouraging but with the actual war in the rear view mirror would a President Romney...(ack...gag, coff, coff...), continue to devote the resources necessary to do the right thing for the military personnel  republicans always seem so anxious to deploy in the name of “preserving our freedoms and way of life”?  I’m not so sure.  But it would be nice if they at least acknowledge them...