Last night, President Barack Obama appeared live on national televison. He made an official announcement from the Oval Office stating that the United States’ combat mission in Iraq has finally reached its end. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, proposed that the U.S. would end their stay in Iraq by August 31st. The promise was kept, and the American soldiers pulled out.
I have to say that it’s good to see our President keep one of his big promises to the American people. However, there is still one big question about this: Can we really say that the war in Iraq really is over? Many hold that this war was not a victory for the Americans. In fact, some others go as far as saying that the war was pointless, and a waste of money and resources. Billions of dollars were behind this war, and some believe that these funds were wasted. In addition, how can we remain certain that everything will return to “normal” in Iraq? There are many uncertainties about this, some of which may never be answered.
With that being said, I realize that this was only the second time that the President has addressed the nation from the Oval Office on television. It kind of makes you wish that he’d addressed us about other pressing issues in this manner. Surely he doesn’t want to sweep things under the rug like Bush did. Acts like that made us all think that he didn’t really know or care what was going on. I can assure that if Bush were still in office, we would have never heard such an announcement, and the pointless war would have raged onward.
An editorial published on The New York Times‘ website Tuesday evening states that Bush “tried to make Iraq an invisible, seemingly cost-free war.” The editorial adds that Bush “refused to attend soldiers’ funerals and hid their returning coffins from the public.” Obama did the reverse. He paid tribute to the many fallen soldiers in his televised speech. I may not agree with the things Obama has done over the past two years, but I feel that the soldiers were very deserving of this tribute. They fought for their country, and gave their all to help make things right. It was not an easy battle for them; it never was. But they did deserve a tribute for their valiant efforts.
Bush often acted like the war was no big deal. He literally brushed it aside. Sometimes, it looked as if he didn’t really care about what was going on in Iraq. The editorial states that the war “made Americans less safe, creating a new organization of terrorists and diverting the nation’s military resources and political will from Afghanistan.” This is all true. Terrorism was on the rise throughout the U.S. army’s stay in Iraq, and Bush turned a clueless and carless ear to it all.
So the question remains: Is the war in Iraq really over? At this point, it’s really hard to say. The editorial states that “Obama candidly said the United States is not free of this conflict; American troops will see more bloodshed.” This leads us to believe there is still a lot to be worked out. As I said before, there is no victory to declare here. This was a pointless war that cost us billions of dollars. The President may say that the war is over, but in reality, it may not actually be.
You can read the editorial from The New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/opinion/01wed1.html?hp
Related Posts
