The United States cannot walk away from the new international terrorist front it created in Iraq.
Once the reason for keeping troops in Iraq is stated honestly, it's easier to accept the obvious: we can't just walk away. Staying in Iraq for any other reason -- like saving the political face of the administration and maintaining a profitable area of exploitation for private contractors and oil companies -- is just not acceptable.
"The new international terrorist front it created" is a good way to put it, close enough to capture the unvarnished truth of Bush's culpability. To the extent that there is a "war on terror," it began with George Bush's response to 9/11. A relatively small group of criminals attacked specific military and financial targets in America on 9/11. Their mirror image, a relatively small group of corrupt officials, responded in a way which turned criminal activities into a war.
Those politicians have created the "new international terrorist front," apparently deliberately, and in doing so carved out powerful positions for themselves, diverted billions and billions of Americans' wealth into a select group of private sector industries -- defense, security and reconstruction -- and away from the kinds of programs which enrich and empower all of us. And they've left us with a "new international terrorist front." We'll be defending ourselves from that enemy for several generations, handicapped by the even greater need to restore the balance between corporate and community prosperity in America. Not to mention the rule of law.
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