——the following year Senator Carl Levin would propose a rapid withdrawal in order to somehow magically force an Iraqi political settlement. “It is time for Congress to explain to the Iraqis that it is your country,” he said in a speech before Congress, apparently under the impression that the Iraqis didn’t know that. To me, this proposal for ending the occupation seemed little more than a smokescreen to allow us to leave Iraq behind without feeling too guilty about it.—- Quoted by Phil Klay in his essay ‘The Citizen Soldier”.
What Senator Carl Levin said about Iraq could well be said by someone else about Afghanistan. Iraq is a mess — a country destroyed by a war for which there was no basis. So are Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and Yemen– and there is the Islamic State (IS) casting a longer and longer shadow over the world. Sooner than later there is going to be a tally of the terrorist leaders killed world-wide by Drone and other strikes. The list will be impressive but when it is considered in terms of the effect on the war on terror the conclusion will be shocking — negligible. Instead the focus will shift to the mushroom growth of decentralized terrorist franchises all over the world and the spike in the levels of violence wherever this war is being waged. There is also the cost of this war in terms of lives lost in combat and suicides and collateral damage, the disruption of post stress traumatic disorder (PTSD), the crippled, the orphans, and the tortured and of course the trillions of dollars spent. The killing of the Taliban leader Mullah Mansour is, therefore, an event that should lead to some introspection.
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