Yesterday I was thinking about the 4000 plus soldiers the United States has lost during the last 5 years of war in Iraq. I thought, wow, that’s 4000 good soldiers whose services have been lost. Have they been wasted? It certainly seems that way to me. Almost 4 years ago, I wondered here if it were time for the US to adopt a Star Trek style Prime Directive. After 4000 dead soldiers and many times more Iraqi civilians, a non interference amendment to the US Constitution seems like an even better idea.
The rest of the world doesn’t want the United States telling them what kind of government they should have and forcibly removing governments we don’t like. We are not wanted in Iraq by either the Sunni’s or the Shiites, or the Kurds for that matter. To stay now, we are only delaying the inevitable civil war and partitioning of Iraq. I still think, free and open societies are the way to go, but each culture has to decide the when and how of that on their own. That can be very messy, but I suspect far fewer lives will be lost than when outsiders try to impose their will. I hope Iraq will stand as a lesson for the limits of interference in the affairs of others for a long time. Sadly, I think Vietnam was supposed to do that too…