Five Years of War - Had Enough Yet?

[jhameia]

It's been five years. Man! I'm slow on the uptake... this is the first time I've gotten on the computer to write on LJ all day.

So. FIVE YEARS! I told a co-actress, and she said, "wow, that's longer than World War I!"

I can still remember getting into Feminism and Orientalism and reading Baghdad Burning for the first time. I read it online; I didn't buy the book. I read it at work and shouldn't have, because I nearly cried. When I got home, I cried openly.

Reading about it more and more, I honestly can't see a reason why we're in there. Remember what happened? Bush was like "We need to go into Afghanistan, ya'll, 'cos Osama's there" and they went. And they're still there, incidentally. Then suddenly it was like "Well, we gotta go to Iraq 'cos Saddam has WMDs!" and so they went, without really giving a clear explanation on how Iraq and Afghanistan were connected beyond a vague "Saddam probably paid Al-Qaeda to get in there!"

And now, exactly what's been accomplished? All the promises of a "free and democratic" Iraq, down the tubes. In Riverbend's blog, you can read how life changed so drastically - from equal access to education and employment, women's rights went down the shitter. Religious factions busted out in full bigotry, even between Shiite and Sunni. The poor became poorer and lived more dangerous lives. The rich left. Or got bought out. For all the atrocities Saddam was accused of, he ran a tight ship, and frankly, more people have died in the war since 2003 than in all the years of Saddam's regime.

I really don't have much else to say. Except, like so many others on the interwebs today - THE WAR NEEDS TO END.