US Troops Leave Iraq-Namese Cities

The US Army is officially leaving Iraq-Namese cities today. For the next 18 months, the doughboys will be stuck in bases far from the urban areas of Mesopotamia before coming home once and for all (or at least, before going to Afghanistan). The people of Iraq-Nam are celebrating "National Sovereignty Day," an insult to the Americans who believe that the almost 5,000 Yankee dead died to save Iraq-Nam from itself. For those with a better grip on reality, today marks the end of a war that never should have been fought for a cause no one can understand in a place few could find on a map. There will be more violence in Iraq-Nam, but it won't be directed at Americans.

In the last week, there has been significant violence, in particular car bombs in Shi'ite neighborhoods that have killed dozens. There will be more killing as the Green Zone government gets tested. Without the steel of the US Marine Corps or the US Army backing it up, the security forces of the official Iraq-Namese government will be tried for the next few weeks. One expects hundreds of dead by this time next week all in the name of a government that can't protect itself let alone its citizens.

The Green Zone government is going to face a lot of resistance mostly from Sunnis who are not yet reconciled to their lesser influence after the fall of the Saddamites. The city of Kirkuk still remains a hot spot with Kurds facing off against Arabs. The civil war that boiled over last year is likely to return with a vengeance.

For the Americans, the withdrawal from the cities is the end of a stupid Bushevik policy of intervention in a country that has minimal strategic value. So long as the oil flows, it doesn't matter to America who runs Iraq-Nam. And the oil will flow so long as Iran, not Iraq-Nam, allows it. Iraq-Nam simply doesn't matter, and having 130,000 troops there was always idiocy.

The next important date is December 31, 2011, when the US withdraws all combat troops from the country. That won't mean an end to the occupation. America doesn't do that kind of thing (Germany and Japan still have US troops 65 years after the fact). However, the Green Zone government will be in charge, and that makes a great deal of difference.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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