Yes. I care

David Bellavia wants to know if anybody cares that the mission is accomplished in Iraq. I think what he really wants to know is if anybody cares about the suffering and sacrifices of our troops there. I care very much about the latter and thank them from the bottom of my heart for their often heart-rending self-sacrifice.

About the term “mission acccomplished”: I don’t know what to make of the claim that the mission is accomplished. Given that Iraq will go on being something like an American protectorate with our troops there keeping the Iraqis from dissolving into sectarian violence and periodically getting killed in the process, I don’t know what “mission accomplished” means. It would appear we have successfully established an outpost of Empire, but that’s not what the mission was supposed to be, was it? At any rate, I can’t fathom what “When the Iraqis step up, we’ll step down” mean if, at the end of the day, we will continue to have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of tired and over-extended troops in Iraq. That doesn’t look like stepping down.

None of this is, I think, to be laid at the feet of troops who did what they were ordered to do. That’s the tragedy of situations like this: good men go to fight and die because poweful men who dodged the draft are the ones giving the orders, whether they are named Clinton or Cheney.