Will America Learn Anything from the Iraq War Disaster?

A horrid graphic example of what was done in American's name

Ten years ago America went to war in Iraq based on the lies and fraudulent "data" put forth by the regime of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  Thousands of needless deaths, billions and billions of dollars, and countless war crimes later, most Americans agree that the war was a disaster.  But was anything really learned?  Countless pundits and columnists are writing apology pieces for their participation in the war mongering or their failure to ask the serious questions that might have spared the nation from the debacle.  I for one never supported the war and recall feeling physically sick when the heinous Chimperator Bush announced in a televised press conference that he had sent America to war - something for which he should be criminally prosecuted in my opinion (as well as for war crimes).  A typical apology piece appears in the Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

Ten years ago this week, I was covering the U.S. military as it began its assault on Iraq. As I read back now over my clips, I see a few useful warnings about the difficulties ahead. But I owe readers an apology for being wrong on the overriding question of whether the war made sense.

Invading Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein a decade ago was one of the biggest strategic errors in modern American history. We’ll never know whether the story might have been different if better planning had been done for “the day after,” or the Iraqi army hadn’t been disbanded, or several other “ifs.” But the abiding truth is that America shouldn’t have rolled the dice this way on a war of choice.

America’s military power, awesome as it was, turned out to be insufficient to impose a settlement in Iraq; and in a grinding war of occupation, all our might could not turn on the electricity in Baghdad or frighten Sunnis and Shiites into cooperating with each other. Rome was also weak at home, politically: The United States didn’t have the stomach for a protracted war that President George W. Bush couldn’t explain and the public didn’t understand. 

The second comment was from a Syrian friend who opposed the war. In 2002, when we first discussed the coming battle, he was reading “The March of Folly,” historian Barbara Tuchman’s account of epochal policy blunders through history. America was about to make another mistake of historic dimensions, my friend warned. 

My friend took me aside after the fighting had been raging for several months. I am still haunted by what he said: “I am sorry for America. You are stuck. You have become a country of the Middle East. America will never change Iraq, but Iraq will change America.”

In the political vacuum we created, Iraq tumbled into the past — pulling a lot of the Arab world with it. That’s part of why President Obama has been so careful recently in dealing with Syria: He doesn’t want America to make the same mistake twice. But history is cruel: You can try so hard to avoid an outcome that, in your very passivity, you make more likely.

Sadly, the writer still isn't able to admit that everything done in Iraq was a disaster  and clings to the myth that  the surge of U.S. troops led by Bush and Gen. David Petraeus was something positive.  More frightening is the fact that far too many in the U.S. military are only to eager to repeat the disaster in Iran or Syria.  American hubris just keeps getting in the way of common sense and cold, calculating long term analysis and recognition of objective reality.   Vietnam should have taught the nation and our military a lesson.  Sadly, the lesson wasn't learned or was forgotten and thousands of individuals lost their lives needlessly.   Andrew Sullivan at least seems to appreciate the magnitude of his error:

This feels like an academic debate. But it isn’t. I have blood on my hands. However many times I try to wash them, the blood will not come off.