Day of Shame, 7 years after

Today is the seventh anniversary of the Day of Shame, the day that Colin Powell made a grotesquely unconvincing case to the United Nations for the invasion and occupation of Iraq... and the American media declared it compelling.

Most Americans believed what the administration and the media told them. A lot of people died.

Absolutely nothing has been done to prevent such deadly propaganda and groupthink from winning the day again and again. No lessons learned about imperialism, jingoism, a corrupted media, nor about the pernicious effects of truthiness and STFU.

But, heck, we've "moving on," as we do.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama made this announcement:

As we take the fight to al Qaeda, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as President. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August. We will support the Iraqi government as they hold elections, and continue to partner with the Iraqi people to promote regional peace and prosperity. But make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.

Curiously, there was little fanfare about it. One can only speculate as to why.

Perhaps...

• People don't believe him. This promise may be forgotten, excused away, fudged, or outright lied about.
• They know the devil's in the details. How many "non-combat" troops will remain, and how legitimate is the combat/non-combat troop distinction? How many mercenaries will remain... might their number even be increased? How many troops will hover nearby?
• They know there's no peace dividend, with surging war in Af-Pak and beyond
• No one wants to call attention to their role in supporting this now-unpopular war.

A blood-stained and heavily armed nation that can't be bothered to learn from the past is a nation that's hard to be proud of. But we believe in "looking forward, not backward." Move along folks, nothing to see here.

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