I was utterly aghast at the lie perpetuated here by the Sun Herald editorial board in its March 19 editorial.
Ten
years ago, the U.S. launched an unprovoked attack on a sovereign
nation, a nation which, despite the claims of the then-President and his
Administration, had absolutely nothing to do with the terrorist attacks
of 9/11/2001 and which possessed no weapons of mass destruction arrayed
against the United States.
Over 4,000 American lives lost, tens of thousands of Americans
wounded or crippled, over 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. Over $1.6
TRILLION was spent on the invasion and subsequent occupation with an
estimated $6 trillion more to come in veteran’s expenses.
And yet absolutely no one has been held accountable. No one from the
Bush Administration, not one single member of Congress who voted for
it, not one single member of the supposedly liberal media which either
wholeheartedly endorsed it or failed to offer even a word of caution.
That this paper conveniently neglects its own role in endorsing and
supporting this colossal failure of American foreign policy and
conflating it with the hunt for Osama bin Laden is despicable. That
this editorial board would callously, under the auspices of "honoring"
the dead, not even mention that the Iraq War as a mistake is beyond
contemptible.
The message here is very clear: Don’t criticize our blunder in Iraq. Doing so would be “dishonoring” the troops.
If
the Sun Herald Ed Board truly wants to honor those who died while in
service to this country as a result of both of those conflicts, the very
least it could do is be honest about WHY those service members died.
It could also offer a public apology for failing to oppose a war which
should have never been.
Scoundrel by Bernard Cornwell
