Pandora’s box

Speaking of Pandora’s box, the U.S. must feel like it opened one of its own when it invaded Iraq, because it’s had nothing but trouble there ever since. More than 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed, another 15,000 or more have been wounded in action—often maimed for life—and thousands more have been put out of action by accidents, disease, and the stress and strain of fighting a guerrilla war in which they never know when they might be shot or killed. Even if they survive Iraq physically, what they see and experience there often haunts them the rest of their lives.

That’s the cost in men’s lives. It’s also costing the U.S. government billions to occupy Iraq and kill Iraqis who don’t like them being there, not to mention all the innocent Iraqi civilians who die. national misery. And as horrible as it is, the purposes behind the United States' policy in the Middle East must change to be one of preventing, rather than fostering, conflict. For decades now, we have supported various regimes in the Middle East that have been despotic, that have oppressed their people, or, in the alternative, we have supported these groups that have then morphed into these organisations like al-Qaeda and Islamic State. War is the national creed of America.

Ted Rudow III, MA