That Time When George W. Bush Got All Those People Killed, AKA The Iraq War

Today is the 10^th anniversary of one of the dumbest decisions in the history of the world. George W. Bush – enabled by a compliant Congress of Democrats and Republicans – made the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, which posed no threat to the United States or its international allies.

As a result of this bad decision, thousands of American service people are dead, in addition to thousands of Iraqi citizens caught in the crossfire. As a result of this horrible choice, our country was more vulnerable and the perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack on America were allowed to flourish.

While most Americans now believe the war was wrong, there is still a significant minority, especially on the right, who still bitterly clings to the fairytale that Bush, Cheney, and company sold us.

I can kind of understand that. To repudiate the Iraq War, the rock that the modern right lashed itself to for almost a decade, is to admit that you ideologically fought for nothing for years. In that situation, it is far less psychologically damaging to continue wallowing in fiction.

But in the real world, those American soldiers and Iraqis are still very dead. They died for no good reason, a violation of the sacred oath of office and the reason why George W. Bush will go down in history as one of the world’s worst leaders.

Bush is ultimately responsible for the final decision to go to war, the failed strategy to secure the country, and the repeated disaster of the occupation (including torture). But he wouldn’t have been able to do those things without a spineless Congress – particularly the Democratic Party – enabling him. People like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid and Dick Gephardt have done good and will continue to do good, but Iraq will always be a permanent blood-stained blot on their records. Many of us knew at the time that the Iraq War was the wrong war at the wrong time, and our representatives in Congress (especially the Democrats) should have done better.

In this life, Bush will apparently wile away his twilight years doing infantile things like painting dogs (other ex-presidents of both parties again outshine this failure of a human being even in this endeavor), but in the next world I am certain that the souls of those he sacrificed at the altar of his political fortunes will haunt him for eternity.