Promise Kept

[Anonymous]

The Iraq war is over. Combat troops were withdrawn within two months of Obama's original campaign promise, and we are now officially out.

The Republicans fought and fought against timetables for withdrawal. They refused to make promises to the American people on the subject. Even as the Iraqi government was forcing a timeline, they refused to budge. In the end, the Administration had to sign an agreement, after the 2008 election was over.

With the country focused on economic trouble, I think we should still remember that this was a critical issue for our country. We needed to be out of this war, and even as recently as a few months ago, conservative pundits and politicians accused Obama of failure. Failure of what, you say? Failure of renegotiating a continued presence in Iraq.

It's time to let this war go. We did enough damage, Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, 5000 of our troops dead and tens of thousands living with permanent disability. We now have a Shiite led coalition government sitting next to Iraq, and still there is sectarian violence. On the flip side, it is a democracy, and we'll see how that works in the long run. But a trillion dollar invasion is a hell of a way to get there.