Your Opinion: Historical obstacles to outcome in Iraq

Dear Editor:

I must conclude this Iraq question with my response to Mr. Horstmann and Mr. Schneiders. The bulk of my June 29 submission delved into the historical hindrances that made our effort in Iraq a fool's errand and a reflection of the lack of comprehension of the sectarian reality that President Bush and friends in their pride considered irrelevant at worst and within their power to resolve at best.

I reviewed the 12 factors Wikipedia listed as justification for the 2003 invasion as Horstmann suggested. Wikipedia only reported the Bush administration's own justifications for that invasion. Horstmann's proposition is that Wikipedia's reporting of those justifications creates fact. Essentially, the 12 are restatements of the same misinformation, lies and selective intelligence used to drive us into the war in the first place.

Both Horstmann and Schneiders make much of the fact that Democrats also voted for the authorization for military action. I never said they did not. The success of the Bush stampede to war was a combination of a citizenry susceptible to fear and an administration willing to use that fear. The equal guilt of Democrats who failed to question does not diminish the simple truth that the intelligence and the briefings, indeed the whole effort of the Bush administration was to wage this war and they were willing to sacrifice truth and fact at every turn to achieve it. I would note that the only votes in opposition were Democratic votes.

Horstmann and Schneiders, for all their efforts to define our Iraq adventure as an unfinished opportunity, demonstrate that they too have learned nothing, absolutely nothing about the reality of the sectarian history of the region and our ability to manipulate it to our liking.

Both seem to be of the opinion that staying longer, sacrificing the lives of more troops, crippling more brave young Americans and spending more billions would have achieved that perfect democratic society we were promised by Bush and Cheney. That goal was functionally impossible in 2003 and 2014 proved it.

The thousand years of conflict and competition preceding our foolish effort should convince any thinking individual that, unless we were willing to sacrifice forever, the result would have been the same as what we see today. Britain learned this in the last century. Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Today's Iraq is Bush's legacy.