I originally wrote this Web blog entry back in 2013 to mark the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It’s something of a “handwringing” remembrance op-ed given that the Iraq war of 2003 was, essentially, a crime against humanity by the George W. Bush administration. Some of my future writing may deal with this war and its aftermath. For now, I’ve decided to place a copy of this entry on my SlideShare account. Stephen Cheng May 14, 2020

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I originally wrote this Web blog entry back in 2013 to mark the tenth anniversary of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. It’s something of a “handwringing” remembrance op-ed given that the Iraq war
of 2003 was, essentially, a crime against humanity by the George W. Bush administration. Some
of my future writing may deal with this war and its aftermath. For now, I’ve decided to place a
copy of this entry on my SlideShare account.
Stephen Cheng
May 14, 2020
The Iraqi war: A ten-year anniversary
(originally posted on Wednesday, March 27, 2013)
I don't have anything original to write for this entry. What I have to say here has already been
said, much more concisely and eloquently, by other "laypeople" in letters to the editors
published by the daily newspaper that I regularly read, The New York Times, and other media
sources. Paul Krugman also wrote and published a good, apt op-ed column on the disaster that
was and still is the Iraqi war -- I doubt he's the only journalist or commentator to do so, either.
In point of fact, what I have to write here could just as well have been written in previous years:
2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
So what do I have to say here concerning the Iraqi war's tenth anniversary? Well, for one, the
fact that the war was based on a pack of lies such as the claimthat Saddam Hussein's
government and military had an operational arsenal of weapons of mass destruction along with
the other claimthat that same government and military had ties with Al-Qaeda. The
justification of democratic nation-building fell absolutely flat, too. Needlessly for me to note,
it's still flat now. Iraq is anything but a "stable" and "mature" democratic nation-state -- instead
it's become a region of communalist, sectarian violence. Granted, though, there may be signs
of cultural revival in the country.
I'm wringing my hands, like other people, and, I know this sounds conservative of me, that's
because I fear for the moral fabric of this country. The former George W. Bush administration
has not been brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity and the current
Barack Obama administration has more or less continued neoconservative policies through
different, "indirect" means such as unmanned drones -- to say nothing of the fact that Obama
approved the killing of US citizens suspected of even remotely being involved in terrorism.
What's more, the latter administration continues to shore up relations with Near and Middle
Eastern client states such as Saudi Arabia and Israel, maintains a military occupation
("outsourced" to NATO, but obviously the US government is in charge) of Afghanistan (yes, I
know about the planned 2014 withdrawal), co-opted (with France and Great Britain) the Arab
Spring rebellion in Libya, dispatched a Navy SEAL task force to kill Osama bin Laden (capture

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and trial weren't possible?), and is in the process (along with France) of co-opting the Arab
Spring uprising in Syria. Militarism is the norm and the Obama administration has merely
consolidated, in truth normalized, the neoconservative policies of its predecessor.
None of the above, of course, should justify any "Third Worldist" anti-imperialist fantasies.
Saddam Hussein was a dictator who once enjoyed US support, especially during the Reagan
years when he committed acts of genocide against the stateless Kurdish population (roughly
the same time, by the way, when militia forces allied with the Israeli government massacred
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. It was also the same time when religious fundamentalists in
Afghanistan, right-wing death squads in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, and the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia received US military support.). Had he stayed in power until early-to-mid
2011 when the Arab Spring was in full force, Iraq, like Libya and Syria, probably would have
been in a state of civil war. Likewise, Al-Qaeda and other groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas
would qualify, if not for their religious fundamentalism and their non-Western origins, as classic
far right political currents.
Nevertheless, as the past ten, or rather ten-odd, years have demonstrated, the neoconservative
approach of total war is hardly a "solution." But, all the same, it has become our reality.