Blog | Apparently, there was no Iraq war
One of the most iconic scenes in the hit movie “The Matrix” involved protagonist Neo speaking to a young clairvoyant about the nature of reality.
The young boy was easily bending a spoon - with his mind. Neo tried but couldn’t until the boy told him he needed to first understand that “there’s no spoon.”
Suddenly, Neo was bending the spoon with just his thoughts, too.
That set up the climax of the movie, one in which Neo became an unstoppable superman capable of defeating what had seemed like an impossible enemy by doing things - willing bullets to stop in mid-air - human beings had never before been capable of accomplishing.
Something similar seems to be going on with the U.S. and war, particularly the Iraq war.
It’s astonishing how many people seemed to have forgotten that we’ve been at war since 2003.
They’ve forgotten that before we went in, we were angry, responding to the latest form of “evil in the world,” were convinced that our unmatched military might would make the difference, just as long as we unleashed the beast.
The media helped sell the need for the war, all but drowning out dissenting voices.
We would reshape the Middle East in our image and “fight them over there so we wouldn’t have to fight them here.”
We would be conquering heroes who stopped evil in its tracks before the sounding of the dinner bell.
Things didn’t quite turn out that way.
We’ve spent trillions of dollars, lost about 4,500 U.S. troops, with another 40,000 or so sustaining life-altering wounds, and saw the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis.
We also saw Al Qaeda flock to Iraq - a place it had not been - when we put 160,000 American troops on the ground. From that group grew something we now call ISIS or ISIL.
Oh, then there’s this little nugget that most people screaming for more war and more blood every time ISIL does something nasty: the military is suffering through the highest rate of suicide in its history while only about 1 percent of Americans ever had to face the hell that was war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sen. Lindsey Graham seems to be calling for more war and more aggressive action every other day.
There should be no rules in war, Dr. Ben Carson has declared.
According to them, just like that spoon, there was no Iraq war.
In 2002 and 2003, I was convinced that it could only be a good thing if we used the world’s greatest military to depose a dictator and give 25 million Iraqis a chance at freedom.
The past decade disabused me of that naivete. Too bad many others ignore reality and seem to be influenced by a Hollywood-inspired fantasy.
Yes, we have to confront those who do evil in the world. But we better be smarter about it this time around.
Our soldiers can’t dodge bullets the way Neo could.
This story was originally published February 17, 2015 at 9:05 AM with the headline "Blog | Apparently, there was no Iraq war."