Ingrates
By Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.
To be blunt, the people who argued for an invasion for any reason — to eliminate nonexistent WMD, to rearrange the political culture of the Middle East, to rescue herds of ponies — were morons. The people who argued that Iraqi oil revenues would be sufficient to bankroll the war should have their skulls boiled and turned into drinking gourds. And the people like Andy McCarthy — who continue to argue that the US should be toppling regimes across the planet — should be standing on a corner somewhere, selling pencils or offering to squeegee your car. These, too, are stubborn facts.