No more U.S. troops in Iraq

Letters to the Editor

Published Oct. 10, 2016 in the Akron Beacon Journal

Prior to the debate between the two major-party vice presidential candidates, I was not aware that the United States now has 15,000 troops in Iraq, down from 175,000 in 2009.

As a result, American loss of life and limb are significantly less than when the U.S. invasion force was a continued insult to millions of Iraqis.

We sometimes forget we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. Iraqis did not greet us as liberators, contrary to the expectations of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Most folks agree that we wouldn’t do it again knowing what we know now.

A signature principle of the Obama administration, which should get more recognition, is that the Middle Eastern peoples need to do much of their own sorting out of religious and tribal animosities.

How many more trillions would we need to spend in the Middle East under a Trump-Pence administration? We need to accept more deaths and injuries because we foolishly placed troops in harm’s way earlier? Should we “take the oil,” is that why we need to be there?

Talk about how to inflame the passions of Arabs. I suggest we invest in American infrastructure and expand community policing rather than continue to blow money in the Middle East.

We were asked to leave by the democratic government we helped establish under an agreement negotiated by George W Bush. Can someone tell me what the Trump-Pence team’s point is here, other than to try to shift the responsibility for ISIS and create fear, uncertainty and doubt?

Dick Bardoulas, Copley Township