Iraq Nightmare Ends With a Whimper

US Embassy during the fall of Saigon, April 29, 1975.

[Update #2 – Chris Floyd nails what I was driving at here, but lack the writing skills to convey].

Update – 10/24/11: Watch Bush Administration UN Ambassador John Bolton admit – on national TV – that Iraq war was fought for access to oil and cheap oil prices – watch it!

No, this time around, there was no fall of the US Embassy, as in Saigon April 1975.

But, make no mistake about it, the US left Iraq under a similar cloud of shame, for the conduct of an illegal invasion, immoral war, and imperial occupation – all based on lies – that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and wasted the lives of over 4,400 US troops.

Obama didn’t end the war (he tried to prolong it), he merely honored Bush’s deal.

Observing how the Iraq nightmare ended, there is no doubt that the long shadow of the Vietnam debacle is still with us.

What else explains the US apathy and non-reaction?

President Obama’s speech, (a full 6 minutes!) announcing the official end of the war, was based on and prompted less moral reflection and introspection than I give a weekend camping trip.

Obama’s speech was awful – that line about US troops leaving with their “heads high” was revolting.

Obama’s failure to reflect honestly – or at all – upon the war is proof positive of the continuing Vietnam backlash (yup, those helicopters being pushed off the deck and photos of people hanging from the helicopters leaving the embassy still burn in the minds of the US warmongers.)

The media and US public reaction was similarly superficial and mind numbing – hundreds of thousands killed by an illegal war based on lies, trillions of dollars wasted, and the loss of US standing in the eyes of the world, and this is what we get when it “ends”?

I suppose the Saigon debacle is one of the reasons that the US built a massive fortified embassy in Baghdad, where US Marines will remain.

But make no mistake – there was no honor, and certainly loads of shame – in the Iraq nightmare.

Vietnam, fall of Saigon, April 1975