The Obama administration wants to keep troops in Iraq. Never mind that pre-President Barack Obama criticized the war. Never mind that Uncle Sam's annual budget deficits exceed $1 trillion. Never mind that Washington faces more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. If President Obama has his way, the U.S. may never leave.
It's worth remembering the huge human cost, to Iraqis as well as Americans, of this supposedly "humanitarian" venture. Lancet reports on a new study:
In 2003–10, 1003 documented suicide bomb events caused 19% (42 928 of 225 789) of all Iraqi civilian casualties in our dataset, 26% (30 644 of 117 165) of injured civilians, and 11% (12 284 of 108 624) of civilian deaths. The injured-to-killed ratio for civilians was 2·5 people injured to one person killed from suicide bombs. Suicide bombers on foot caused 43% (5314 of 12 284) of documented suicide bomb deaths. Suicide bombers who used carsc aused 40% (12 224 of 30 644) of civilian injuries. Of 3963 demographically identifiable suicide bomb fatalities, 2981 (75%) were men, 428 (11%) were women, and 554 (14%) were children. Children made up a higher proportion of demographically identifiable deaths from suicide bombings than from general armed violence (9%, 3669 of 40 276 deaths; p<0·0001). The injured-to-killed ratio for all suicide bombings was slightly higher for women than it was for men (p=0·02), but the ratio for children was lower than it was for both women (p<0·0001) and men (p=0·0002). 200 coalition soldiers were killed in 79 suicide bomb events
This study only cover casualties from suicide bombings. The unnecessary U.S. invasion of Iraq set off chaos and carnage. At least 200,000 Iraqis likely were killed. Hundreds of thousands were injured. Millions were forced from their homes. Heck 'uva job, Georgie Bush!
It's time to bring American forces home--and keep them there. No more foolish wars of choice to remake the globe and reengineer other societies by force.
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