The Iraq War is over. Or, so we are informed. The BBC:
Obama speech at Fort Bragg marks end of Iraq war
US President Barack Obama has marked the end of the Iraq war with a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, telling troops, “welcome home!”
His address paid tribute to the soldiers who served in the conflict – both those who died and veterans who returned home after long tours of duty.
More than 200 soldiers based at Fort Bragg died over the course of the nearly nine-year war.
The final US soldiers are expected to leave Iraq within days.
The last combat troops departed in August 2010….
But, ‘midst the ticker-tape parades, the wild festivities and American celebration for a war that never should have been fought, that was never supposed to cost us anything, was supposed to be “greeted with flowers” according to a high-ranking Darth Vader, and all the rest, I can only think of Shelley:
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said—‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’— Percy Bysshe Shelley
But I am sure that’s entirely too cynical. All that remains are those gravestones with that Official Logo™.
Hoorah.
Courage.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.