Eric Malone reviews our recent history in Iraq in light of the horrifying events of the past few weeks and President Obama's decision to deploy "military advisers" in-country.

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"I will not send American boys 8- or 10-thousand miles around the world to do a job that Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

-- President Lyndon B. Johnson

Just finished watching the current resident of the White House declare that America is sending 300 "military advisers" to Iraq to help with "training" and to "assist" the native Iraqi military forces. You know, the ones who shed their uniforms and left them lying in the street when the rebel forces known as ISIS (Not the Egyptian god of fertility, but rather the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) began to advance through Mosul on to Baghdad last week.

Unless you've been living in a cave (I'm looking at YOU Ayman al-Zawahiri) you know that these radical forces have been taking the Sunni section of northern Iraq by storm these past few weeks, taking no prisoners, leaving a black swath of death and destruction in their wake. They robbed the banks in Mosul of almost $400-million dollars, not to mention taking over American military equipment left behind in the hands of the Iraqi military that we trained for 11 years (humvees, automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, and the like).

When President Obama declared an end to combat operations in Iraq, most folks breathed a sigh of relief. Obama offered to leave behind a residual force to continue training and support for the Iraqi military, but as you know, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki said NO.

Then the new Iraqi President created a government of cronies, composed primarily of Shiite Muslims, intentionally excluding the Sunni minority to the north, not to mention the always-neglected Kurds along the northern border. This segregation and favoritism has now spawned a violent reaction from ISIS.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is the "leader" of this extreme rebel group, a now well-funded ragtag bunch of pissed-off Sunni Muslims armed with machine guns and religious hatred. They killed hundreds of Shiite Muslims in Mosul, some by execution-style bullets to the head, others by chopping off their head with a sharpened machete.

These guys are so weird and violent that they have been denounced by al-Qaeda. Even Iran is supporting the United States' position that al-Maliki needs to include Sunnis and Kurds in the Iraqi coalition government.

So we have lost 4,489 American men and women fighting in Iraq, not to mention 31,944 who came home with brain trauma, missing a leg below the knee, or minus other vital parts like hands, eyes, ears, testicles, or speech. The Iraqis themselves have lost as many as 500,000 people from a war that never should have been fought in the first place, and some estimates put that figure as high as a million or more.

Neighboring Syria is also a big mess as a result of our meddling with Iraq, with refugees flooding into Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. Bashir al-Assad is killing his own people with conventional weapons every day. (Nobody is paying attention anymore since he's not committing genocide with chemical weapons.)

So let's see... why was it that Boy George, Rummy, Wolfowitz, and Cheney insisted that we invade Iraq, mostly unilaterally on our own with a patina of other countries (the famous "Coalition of the Willing") helping us out on March 19, 2003? (Who can forget the incredibly brave contributions of Micronesia, Poland, Colombia, Eritrea, and El Salvador?)

Well, there was oil of course--the original name of the Invasion was Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) until some genius in the Shrub White House determined that was too didactic and re-christened it as Operation Iraqi Freedom, which sounded much more noble.

Only problem there was that although Cheney's petroleum-slicked buddies from Houston, you know, Brown and Root, Halliburton, did manage to secure the oil fields, their intent was to keep oil OFF the market so that the price would go up. Maybe that's what the Evil Spawn of 41 meant when he and his codpiece "landed" on an aircraft carrier (yeah, right) off the coast of San Diego with their brilliantly colored banner "Mission Accomplished."

The invasion was good news for Blackwater (now Xe) Private Military Contractors (PMCs) who made a fortune locking and loading and feeding our boys hamburgers on base.

The ostensible reason we went in was because Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, which of course never materialized. Condi told the U.N. that we didn't want to find the "smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud."

Colin Powell (who helped whitewash the My Lai massacre investigation) told that same august gathering in New York that Iraq was buying "yellow cake" uranium to make nuclear bombs. (Our Cheerleader in Chief later joked about not being able to find the mythical WMD.)

And remember the "fact" that Saddam was involved with al-Qaeda and 9/11? Why, Udaq and Qusay were with the 19 Saudis in the cockpit, weren't they?)

Or maybe we invaded Iraq because President Raisin Brain took umbrage that Saddam had tried to kill his daddy. (Actually Clinton had originally bombed Iraq in 1993 for that.)

Maybe we went into Iraq with guns and mortars blazing because we wanted to bring "stability" to the region and to prevent the massing of extremist groups who might feel like destroying American architecture with airplanes. That's worked out pretty well so far. Just ask Abu al-Baghdaddy-O. Or Pakistan. Or Afghanistan. Or Syria.

Whatever the reason, it was Incurious George who signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the U.S. would pull out of Iraq by December 31, 2011, and it was Obama who fulfilled that promise by December 16, 15 days ahead of schedule. The phrase that was used by Flight-Suit Boy was "they will stand up as we stand down." (Meaning that the Iraqi military would take over security in their country as we pulled out.)

So Shrubby made the agreement to pull out by 2011. Nouri al-Maliki refused Obama's offer to keep American troops in-country. And still the incessant drum-machine of right-wing vituperative bile continues to blame Obama for the current downfall in Iraq. (Personally, I was hoping that Obama would pull out of Iraq back on January 21, 2009, but that was probably wishful thinking on my part.)

OK, so we still don't honestly know why the hell we went in, except it sure felt good back in 2003 when the war was won handily in just a few days, din't it? Admit it, you were impressed that the irrepressible American juggernaut managed to overthrow Saddam in a mere 42 days (although Dad managed to kick Saddam out of Kuwait in only 100 hours). I'm sure Osama bin Laden was grateful for the distraction, as the invasion took the spotlight off of him for a while.

So what do we do now? Obama just said a few minutes ago that he will "not send combat troops" back into Iraq, although he is sending 300 military advisers. (Oddly enough, that was the term of art used during the early days of Vietnam before the Gulf Of Tonkin resolution.)

If we send in drones, that has the likely result of creating ever more terrorists, since even "surgical strikes" inevitably lead to "collateral damage." (Read: Killing Muslim brides and best men.) Same thing with regular ol' traditional air strikes, except that now that ISIS has captured American weaponry, there is a decent chance that they could shoot down our Warthogs.

Maliki wants air strikes to stop these bastards, but Obama has said that he would only do that if Maliki steps down to allow someone else to form a true coalition of Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Maliki said he will not resign, so theoretically that means no air strikes, I think. (Who knows?)

Even if we did try some kind of air strike, how do you pick a target? It's not like there are clear lines of demarcation between the bad guys and everyone else. And ISIS has done a very good job of infiltrating cities, so that if we try to hit them with a Tom-ahawk Cruise Missile from the Carrier George H. W. Bush (WTF?) we would most certainly be hitting civilian targets along with the bad actors.

After watching the President on TV, I thought his response was reasoned and measured, although now we are once again hearing that disco-drum machine thumping on the dance floor for More Action Now. Do something, and do it quickly--that's the good word from Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney (what do those two have in common again?), not to mention all the Republicant faithful who got us into the briar patch with this stupid tar baby in the first damn place. (Cheney, Rummy, Wolfy... the ones who promised we'd be "greeted as liberators with flowers" and that the Iraq war "could be fought on the cheap" and would "pay for itself.")

I don't envy Obama in this situation. In a way, would it be so bad if Iraq split into 3 separate countries? I realize there's the "energy" concern, as Obama phrased it (meaning oil). But what's wrong with that part of the world returning to the same trifurcation that existed in 1920 before the British created an artificial line-drawing and called it the state of Iraq?

There are no good options here folks. I may have my issues with Mr. Obama, but I have to say that I appreciate the fact that he appears to be going slow and trying to determine a reasonable response without getting us back into a war that never should have happened in the first damn place.

Remember that when you hear the hue and cry for immediate action, or feel-good air strikes. Remember that when you hear the chicken-hawks who refused to fight in that "noble cause" of Vietnam demand that we send Americans to kill and die. Remember that when the right-wing hate machine cranks up the volume to 11 blaming Obama for the Mobius trip that was initiated without cause by President Chucklenuts resulting in hundreds of thousands of grieving widows, moms, dads, and the loss of $1.7-TRILLION dollars of your money.

Authors Bio:
Eric Malone has been writing about politics with a sardonic sense of humor through more than one apocalyptic Administration. He is a subversive dedicated to revolution through thoughtful laughter.