Let Freedom Thud

Before we pull up our socks and bring freedom to the world, let's review how we're taking freedom to Iraq. We bombed them, to the tune of four Hiroshimas. We made several hundred thousand homeless. Then we invaded them, and occupy their country. We killed a hundred thousand people, put most of the formerly employed out of work, destroyed their electricity and water supplies. We completely leveled one of their cities, starting with the hospitals, until it was a stinking pile of rubble and rotting corpses. The capital city is now a free-fire zone, and the most powerful military in the world can't even protect the highway to the airport.

We rounded up people randomly, put them in prison without charge, and tortured them in the most specifically humilating ways for Islamic cultures, and circulated photos of the torture around the world. We invaded a country with no terrorists to speak of, and transformed it into the most popular terrorist recruiting and training center in the world.

Our armed forces are depleted, our reserves are in a shambles, and nobody in their right mind will sign up for the National Guard anymore. U.S. deaths in Iraq approach 1500, with thousands more wounded, and thanks to modern medicine a lot of them will be maimed for life. Our few allies in Iraq are getting out as fast as they can, and even some of the contractors making billions from pretending to repair what we destroyed are leaving.

But we're holding free elections just like we said we would, though six months late. Parts of the country are so hostile that polling won't even be attempted, polling places in the rest of the country are being kept secret, as are the names of candidates. Election rallies are held in secret, and the people who appear on the stage refuse to admit whether they are candidates or not. Election monitors aren't even in the country. They're going to monitor from somewhere else. Government officials are being blown up, and the country may or may not already be in a civil and/or religious war, depends on your definition.

The march of freedom in Iraq is so clear that a clear majority in the U.S. think the whole thing was a mistake, and the rest of the world is convinced U.S. policy and leadership are dangerous.

In the meantime, the climate crisis is becoming increasingly obvious, and millions of children are dying of easily preventable diseases or vitamin deficiences. We've in hock to China, the health care situation is so dire than even major corporations and insurance companies are calling for some kind of government program before the economy implodes.

That's how the eagle is soaring. So our course is clear: let's do it again real soon in as many other places as possible.