The Iraq War Was a Colossal Aberration

Some people must have had trouble sleeping these last few nights. Among American and British soldiers, Iraqi politicians and mercenaries fighting in Baghdad, there were many who knew that the airing of this much dirty laundry would be devastating. The official disclaimers are pointless: The mountain of documents published by the informational website WikiLeaks is as embarrassing as it is extensive. It’s not as though the Iraq War saw a few regrettable blunders — such as the detentions at Abu Ghraib — before ending in fanfare with an allied victory. It has been, from start to finish, an absurdity of immense proportions.

Iraqi civilians killed by the tens of thousands; a privatization of war that has become an additional threat to the population; scenes of torture and executions led by Iraqi authorities and covered up, at least passively, by Americans. Then there’s the looting, the kidnappings, the acts of ethnic cleansing and the cascade of vicious murders. And finally, the bloody outbreak of forces supporting al-Qaida, those very same forces that the Americans had supposedly come to fight but who didn’t exist until their arrival, save in the fabrications and lies of warmongers.

This exposure is enough to give more or less inexhaustible ammunition to those who believe that the outcome of this war was decided too hastily.

Who is to be held accountable? Already this weekend, pressure was placed on the Obama administration not to turn its back once again on these reprehensible acts, in which the government was complicit through its own inaction.

What lessons should be learned? In future wars, the military cannot, and must not, hide behind a supposed lack of information in order to avoid detailing, in real time, the consequences of its actions. And most importantly, there is another lesson that sounds as a dire warning: Victory in Iraq was not acquired through military strategy, but by widespread debilitation, by too many blood baths, by rubbing elbows with hell. A lesson, perhaps, to be considered in Afghanistan.