The Last Lie of the Iraq War Exposed

Sperry, formerly Washington bureau chief of Investors Business Daily, is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of Crude Politics: How Bush's Oil Cronies Hijacked the War on Terrorism (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003).

Antiwar.com
November 10, 2005

The Last Lie of the Iraq War Exposed

by Paul Sperry



"Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

"Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgment day comes, yeah."
- Black Sabbath, "War Pigs" (1970)

It seems like only yesterday U.S. deaths in Iraq had reached the grim milestone of 2,000. Now they're already up to 2,055, reminding us all that the only ones really paying for this dishonest war are young GIs, with their lives and limbs.

The White House and its shameless surrogates continue to try to squelch criticism over the soaring body count by saying it dishonors and demoralizes the troops on the ground over there. In other words, if you don't support the war, you don't support the troops.

Excuse me, but who doesn't support the troops? The war pigs need to take a long hard look in the mirror.

Let's not forget it was the secretary of defense who told them to stop whining about missing Humvee armor, and then minimized their brutal roadside deaths by comparing them to random U.S. highway traffic fatalities on the Sean Hannity radio show last year.

For that matter, Donald Rumsfeld's deputy couldn't even remember how many of their soldiers had been killed in action.

Asked about the toll at a House hearing last year, during the deadliest month at that time for American troops, Paul Wolfowitz sat there with his face flapping. "It's approximately 500 … I can get the exact numbers," he stammered. He was off by nearly 250 soldiers – 250 brave Americans who left behind grieving mothers, fathers, wives, children – for what?

But Wolfowitz no doubt was thinking of other "metrics," as he's fond of saying, such as how many more pawns he'd need to make the Middle East safe for Israel. Never mind that the bastards who attacked this country are still on the loose.

Rumsfeld is so out of touch with fallen soldiers, he used a machine to sign his name to letters of condolence to the families of the first 1,000 service members who died in Iraq. He stopped only after he was caught.

Certainly their commander-in-chief is less callous, right? Fat chance. After sending troops into a shooting gallery with bull's-eyes on their backs, he egged on their killers from the safety of the White House with the cry, "Bring 'em on." He no doubt said the same thing about the VC while knocking back bourbons in Alabama.

We've already taken more casualties than in the first three years of Nam. In fact, just by wounding more than 15,000 of our soldiers, the Iraqi insurgents have taken out a full Army division.

And these aren't flesh wounds. These soldiers have had arms and legs ripped from joints, eyeballs blown from sockets, and skulls crushed in, permanently damaging gray matter. These wounded won't be going back for another tour. They face a lifetime of painful rehab and depression.

For what? To capture Osama bin Laden? No. To keep WMD out of his hands? No. To protect America? No. To liberate Iraq? No. The only thing that's been liberated is Islamic fundamentalism from under the thumb of secular Saddam Hussein. The new Iraqi constitution contains all the provisions necessary for an Islamic state, including Article 2: "No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established." Praise Allah.

And the insurgency is not going to die with this election, or any election, so long as we're over there. Listen to near-amputee Terry Rodgers tell it:

"There's always gonna be insurgents trying to blow us up. There's just too many of 'em that are willing to do it. You're never gonna catch all of 'em. And it seems like they have unlimited amounts of ammunition. So I don't think it's ever gonna end."

Rodgers, who was maimed by a roadside bomb while on patrol with the Army, is so mad at Bush for "getting people killed and mutilated for no reason" that he's refused to see him in the few times the president has visited Walter Reed Hospital. And Bush hadn't even tried to visit amputees, or attend funerals, before his reelection campaign.

But he had plenty of time to attend a black-tie dinner in Washington to joke about getting people killed and mutilated for no reason. "Nope, no WMDs there," he quipped to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on a slide showing him looking under White House furniture. Ha, ha.

Last year, an equally glib Bush was spotted taking in a baseball game with Rice just after wires reported several female marines were killed in an Iraq ambush that shocked the nation. That didn't seem to faze either of them. Cameras caught Bush and his gal pal Condi yucking it up in a VIP box. It's apparently all one big game to them.

The last lie of Iraq has been exposed – that Bush and the neocons care about the troops they sent needlessly into harm's way in Iraq. This is the ultimate betrayal.

Now, more than 160,000 are deployed there as sitting ducks, and an increasing number will be picked off, as the insurgents perfect their methods and their attacks grow bolder and deadlier.

And when the death toll tops 3,000, it will mark a most tragic irony in U.S. history. Three thousand brave American soldiers died avenging the murder of 3,000 of their fellow Americans – all on the wrong front, thanks to the war pigs who sent them there.
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