One of the reasons I voted for Barack Obama was his promise to bring American troops home from Iraq. Yet here it is May of 2010, sixteen months since his inauguration, and 92,000 young American men and women are still mired in that Mideast cesspool.
Looks like I was misled.
Despite Obama’s rhetoric, his administration shows few signs of being anti-war. He has ramped up the occupation of Afghanistan and is flying drones into Pakistan to kill people for living near an alleged Al Qaida training camp. And now come rumblings of a likely delay in the departure of U.S. “combat forces” from Iraq.
The troops were supposed to leave Iraq by the end of August, but apparently Iraqi leaders do not have the ability to secure the country if the current resurgence of violence sparks more sectarian conflict. So it seems we can expect yet another revision of the date for the departure of America’s forces.
It’s beginning to look as if the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about is in charge of America – regardless of whom the voters elect. As long as the U.S. remains at war, these blood-stained profiteers continue to make obscene amounts of money, so I suppose we can expect a future of endless military conflict.
Meanwhile, the economy struggles under a staggering debt, and there is talk of trimming benefits like Medicare and Social Security. Didn’t we hear something similar under the previous government(s)?
The more things change the more they stay the same, I guess.
At least, that’s how it looks to me today. I can only pray that the signs are misleading and that the shining hope of a new day – in America and the world – will yet be realized.
