The Iraq Invasion, Ten Years Later | The Nation

The Iraq Invasion, Ten Years Later | The Nation: "The tenth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq is upon us, and we are invited to assess the result. An unbroken record of waste, futility and shame presents itself to the retrospective view. There was the passage by Congress of the dangerously vague and elastic Authorization for Use of Military Force in place of the congressional declaration of war the Constitution requires. There was the infamous day the ‘shock and awe’ campaign was unleashed, when a great and ancient city was bombarded as a world that overwhelmingly rejected the attack watched in helpless dismay—a day that burns in memory as one on which a long-premeditated crime occurred in broad daylight. There were the flimsy deceptions and self-deceptions by which the war was rationalized to the American Congress, the American people, the United Nations and the world—the false allegations that Iraq’s government possessed weapons of mass destruction. There was the culpable, willful credulity with which these allegations were accepted by the craven US news media. There was the jingoistic, cheerleading coverage of the ground invasion. There were the Iraqi prisoners led around on leashes like dogs at Abu Ghraib. There were the Iraqi death squads and torture squads allied with and advised by the United States—and, if current reports are right, directly sponsored by the United States. There was the surprising, protracted failure of the occupation to restore even basic services, such as electricity, water and sanitation. Above all, there were those who lost their lives for nothing—the more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians (many more, if you count excess deaths, direct and indirect, caused by the invasion and occupation) and the more than 4,400 American soldiers. "

(Via.)