The Declaration of Independence is one of our Nation’s founding documents and stands for the idea that government is by consent of the governed: “...Governments are instituted among [People], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...”
Congress passed Public Law 107-243, “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002" on 10/16/02 and stated reasons for the eventual U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Iraq’s regime.
PL 107-243 followed by four years, and referred to, PL 105-338 the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, that “expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime...”
PL 105-338, sec 3 states: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”
Like it or not, since 2006 there has been a government in Iraq that resulted from the process of bombing and overthrow. There have been problems along the way. For example, in 2007 U.S. military “contractors” - i.e., mercenaries - killed 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and Iraqis were angry.
On Sunday U.S. launched air strikes in Iraq, according to the U.S. military, “in retaliation for last week’s killing of an American contractor in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base...”
Iraq’s government was angry about the U.S. air strikes - carried out, in part, in Iraq against targets in Iraq. Iraqi protestors stormed the U.S. embassy. Predictably the current occupant of the Oval Office promised that Iran - “n” instead of “q” on the first three letters - would be held accountable for the breach of our embassy in Baghdad.
We had no business invading Iraq in 2003. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11 but everything to do with bruised egos (from Gulf “War” I) and has a lot of oil.
If one views the government of Iraq as legitimate - and the U.S. does - then our military presence now is neither needed - we got “regime change” & if there were WMDs, one may reasonably infer that after 16 years we “got ‘em” - nor desired by the government.
If one says the Iraqi government is not legitimate, the only basis would be because it is a government the U.S. installed. In that event, we only can stay if we acknowledge we installed a puppet regime - that now reflects the anger of its people.
Worst, we unleashed salvoes of weapons in retaliation for one contractor. If that contractor was a mercenary, then he or she understood risks in the job. If he or she was an operative on a different type of contract, we risk war over the fate of one person.
Stalin once said the loss of a single human life is a tragedy; a million human lives? A statistic. Putin doesn’t mind tragedies or statistics.
Situations such as those extant in Iraq now are part of why so much of the rest of the World hates us. These situations also represent why we need to de-militarize our society. We are bankrupting the future for pointless bellicosity.
As I have noted before, other GOP candidates for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District favor this bloated military. We need to cut in half our military budget. Defense spending accounts for fifteen percent of all Federal spending and about one half of discretionary spending.
Cuts in defense expenditures will make us more secure. People do not like bullies who kill indiscriminately - and have a tendency to want to takeover the embassies of those bullies.