JUST WHY DID WE INVADE IRAQ, AGAIN?

By Juan Montoya

The news this week that Moktada al-Sadr, the populist cleric who emerged as the United States’ most enduring foe in Iraq, returned in triumph Wednesday after more than three years of voluntary exile in Iran and then to prayers at the gold-domed Shrine of Imam Ali, made us wonder what we have accomplished after more than seven years of occupying Iraq.

His supporters there hailed his return as another show of strength for a movement that is now more powerful than at any time since the United States invaded their country.

Ostensibly, our excuse for invading Iraq was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that were never found, to counter the influence of Iran in the region, and, oh yeah, to free the Iraqi people.
Now, as we watch as our more of our young soldiers return home in body bags and the rituals of ceremonies are repeated in many cities of South Texas, it's time we ask why we are still there. Despite the assurances of the military and political leaders that we are in the process of disengagement, the facts on the ground tell us otherwise.
And now, in view of the triumphant return of the Iran-backed Shiite cleric who defied us in Bagdad, it is all too apparent that we have fallen short of our stated goals.
As James C. Harrington, a civil rights lawyer and professor in Austin asks in the Rio Grande Guardian: " What if the United States had used the $1.3 trillion it has spent on the wars to build schools and hospitals in foreign lands? Or starting farming coops? Those would have yielded more success in our common struggle against terrorism. And the world economy would have been better off.

Instead, 7,000 troops have died -- not to mention the tens of thousands now disabled, and a hundred thousand or more non-combatant men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Terrorists build off social inequality, lack of education, poverty, and a perverted view of the United States, which they perceive as materialistic and militarily aggressive.

War, the killing of innocent people, and destroying social infrastructure provide them with recruiting opportunities they would not otherwise have."

It was in 2003 that George W. Bush declared that the Iraqi invasion was a success and that we had a "Mission Accomplished" from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Now we know that was not true.

Osama bin Laden is still loose somewhere in Pakistan and we have overstayed our welcome in Afghanistan now longer than any invading force there without an end or victory in sight.

A family in Zapata is now burying one of its young men killed in our adventure overseas, the latest in too many young soldiers who have died there. When will this all end?