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Who has really benefited from the Iraq War?
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The sad story of the worst misuse of the United States military (otherwise known as the Iraq War) could be summed up in the following statement: Never have so many suffered such loss for the profit of so few!
The question is: Who has benefited from the Iraq War?
Have the American people benefited in any way from the ongoing conflict? Have the Iraqi people benefited?
Unfortunately, the answer would be no on both counts. As for what has been accomplished by our efforts, military accomplishments have been puzzling at best and more often than not, the only result is more dead American soldiers. Despite Barack Obama’s campaign promises, we are still mired in that war, and our military commanders warn of a bloodbath if and when we do leave.
To date, we the American taxpayers have spent $692 billion on Iraq. The total price of this war is now estimated to easily reach $1 trillion. That is a big difference from President Bush's promise that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war and reconstruction. We were told that the financial burden of this war would be placed upon the Iraqis and not the American taxpayers. Of course, that was a lie which has contributed to this nation’s bankrupt treasury.
Now we get to the real cost of any war...Those who lose their lives under their nation's flag. We have now lost 4,265 American soldiers in Iraq. Additionally, 30,182 soldiers have been wounded, many of those young men will live the rest of their lives with arms and legs missing. According to the Pentagon, there have also been more than 70,000 Iraqis killed since 2003.
There is no question that Saddam was a monster, and he did possess chemical and biological weapons. However, those facts should have never been a surprise. After all, it was we who equipped and counseled him for so many years.
While Saddam was a Muslim, he was not a religious zealot or extremist, he was a described by most as a secularist. He was a longtime enemy of the Shiites who control Iran, as well as an enemy of al Qaeda. It would seem that this man could have been used much as we did with another useful despot--Joseph Stalin. The Soviet leader was a murderous dictator, but became our ally because we shared a common enemy in Nazi Germany.
Just as Stalin did, Saddam would have made a convenient ally considering the current blood-thirsty state of the Islamic world. Who better to fight barbarians than another barbarian? However, President Bush and his non-veteran war planners decided that Saddam must be toppled and killed...Eventually, the invasion of Iraq and the persecution of Saddam will be remembered as the biggest military blunder in U.S. history.
Of course, the Iraqi people did not live in an ideal society under Saddam , but they did have running water, electricity, jobs, and they could go to the market without fear of being blown to pieces by a suicide bomber. Saddam ruled with an iron fist, and as a result there was no terrorism in Iraq. It has become apparent that Iraq can only function with a military dictator at the helm. Despite the daily bombings and kidnappings, and a radical Shiite government now in place, Bush continued to tell us that Democracy was taking hold in that country and that somehow the Iraqi people are now "better off."
So we know that the American and Iraqi people have not benefited from the war. So who has?
It is no secret that Vice-President Dick Cheney left his job as the head of Halliburton to run in 2000. It is also no secret that Halliburton has received $16 billion in no bid contracts since the beginning of the war. Of course, Halliburton is not the only company operating in Iraq. In fact, in December 2006, The Washington Post reported that there were 100,000 contractors working in Iraq (that figure did not include sub-contractors). Just as Gen. Douglas MacArthur once declared World War II to be: "an engineer's war," it would be fair to refer to the war in Iraq as a 'contractor's war.'
Another fact is that in 2000, we placed two oil men into the White House. Since the start of the Iraq War, until the final year of the Bush presidency, the price of oil and gasoline steadily increased, as have the incredible profits of the oil industry. In 2005, Exxon Mobil Corporation set a record as the first publicly traded company with quarterly sales over $100 billion. Could it be only a mere coincidence that when these two oil men were elected a barrel of oil only cost $20, and that same barrel peaked in 2008 at $140?...While the bushbots rushed to defend their supposedly “conservative” leader and refered to selective price indexes, our economy was collapsing.
Our military has been stretched to the breaking point, the national treasury has been raided, and thousands of our young men have been killed and injured, while fighting under absurdly restrictive rules of engagement. It is obvious that the American people have in no way benefited from this war, nor have the Iraqi people who now live under an oppressive Shiite regime, and risk life and limb to simply purchase their daily provisions.
However, big business has benefited greatly from this war. Of course, they have done so at the expense of American lives and taxpayer dollars. We the people have been, in fact, supplementing companies such as Halliburton, Blackwater, and DynCorp to name only a few.
These sad facts are out there and available to everyone. It is maddening to me as a conservative to see that so few of my brethren choose to speak out about this ongoing outrage.
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