It's The End of the War As We Know It

I can close my eyes, think of the morning of September 11th 2001, and still get a knot the size of a grapefruit in my stomach. Those feelings of sadness, confusion, disbelief, and anger seemed as though they would never lift from my consciousness. My mornings were spent in class, my afternoons and evenings spent soaking up the news of the tragedy.

There was never a question of 'if' the United States would wage war in response to the destruction of the towers that day, but a question of 'who' exactly would get the brunt of it. In 2003, the world was given an answer to that question as the U.S. military began a "Shock and Awe" campaign on the city of Baghdad in Iraq. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was officially underway.

The signs were bad from the beginning, and they were all pointing to a lengthy stay for the U.S. military in a place that was growing more hostile by the day. To begin with, President George W. Bush believed that Iraq was producing and stockpiling Weapons of Mass Destruction, and with the invasion he hoped to prove it. No WMDs were found.

After running dictator Saddam Hussein underground, literally, the statue of him in Bagdad was toppled, and it seemed that the people of Iraq were rejoicing, that they were on board with the mission. Some were, but the ousting of Saddam brought with it an onslaught of attacks by insurgents. These dangerous extremists that were once afraid of being banished to Saddam's dungeons now saw their chance to take a piece of the pie, and they came running for it, guns blazing.

After the fall of Saddam, it seemed that the White House expected the fighting to stop at once. Indeed, President George W. Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished". Not quite. Instead, what followed was 7 years of ambush attacks on U.S. soldiers, videotaped be-headings, and rising body counts on both sides.

Now, as the last combat unit remaining in Iraq, the 4th Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division, crossed quietly into Kuwait territory, the fighting is finally over. Or, at least, the official combat mission is over. The fighting, it seems, is far from over. An Iraqi official recently stated that he would like the U.S. military to remain in country for another decade. Some 50,000 U.S. soldiers will remain in Iraq to continue the training of an independent Iraqi Army which now must protect themselves from hostile nations in every direction.

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Lawrence of the 4th Stryker Brigade said this right before the brigade made the trip out of Iraq, "This is going to put the finishing touches on seven years here. What has been achieved is going to echo throughout the region, prosperity, peace, truth, and freedom: the works."

However, there is a question that will echo as well, and that is, "What, exactly, was accomplished?" The Middle East is still a war zone, and there is nothing that indicates that peace has a chance of prevailing in the near future.

The Taliban has rebanded, Al-Qaeda is quickly regaining strength, and Iran just unveiled a new unmmaned bomber that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls his "ambassador of death". That's great news.

As a gambling man, I'll put the odds of nuclear war breaking out within the next 20 years at 5 to 1.