Iraq war "ends"

"We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children."

Howard Zinn

"I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."

Barack Obama, 2002

"Because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met, Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny. That’s part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right. . . . Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line of heroes spanning two centuries—from the colonists who overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced down fascism and communism, to you—men and women who fought for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to those who attacked us on 9/11."

Barack Obama, addressing troops at Fort Bragg last Wednesday

Barack Obama wanted to alter the deal that George Bush made with the Iraqi government, so he could keep up to 20,000 troops in Iraq. The Iraqi Prime Minister fought him, and thankfully won. 5,500 private contractors will be left behind. A massive CIA station will be left behind. Special Operations troops operating covertly out of uniform will be left behind. Tens of thousands of US troops will be left behind across Iraq’s border in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, while the US Navy and the US Air Force remain in control of the country’s coastlines and airspace. Source. 4,487 Americans have been killed. Just as many have committed suicide, and an untold number of others will live with post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of their lives. More female soldiers have been raped by their fellow soldiers than have been killed in combat. Iraqi civilian deaths vary wildly, but most estimates put it in the hundreds of thousands. Civilians. All based on lies. Lies like Obama mentioning "9/11" in the same breath as "Fallujah."

Americans are still dying in Afghanistan. The few remnants of al Qaeda are not in Afghanistan, and they are no longer operational. Osama bin Laden is dead. And yet Barack Obama finds it necessary to insert a provision the NDAA that will demolish the Sixth Amendment, just as he ignored the Fourth with his extension of the Patriot Act. Once he signs the NDAA, there will be literally nothing preventing the government from doing whatever the fuck it wants to us; meanwhile there's been virtually a total media blackout discussing this, and even a few cases of censorship. Two amendments of the Bill of Rights are no longer in effect, based on lies about "safety." I don't know what's scarier: the fact that this is happening, or the fact that the American people can be so easily manipulated, as to allow it to happen -- liberals stop speaking out against violations of civil liberties once Democrats start doing it, and conservatives opposed the bombing of Libya, which was based on similar reasons for their invasion of Iraq. War is peace.