Letter: Withdrawal of troops from Iraq

Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay took stock of the Bush revolution in foreign affairs. The neocons have been running the show — and we’re all now paying the price, wrote the two.

In 1975, Nixon stood on hallowed ground and announced the invasion of Vietnam was over, after 6 million Vietnamese men, women and children had been murdered with conventional as well as chemical and nuclear weapons. The country had been ravaged and laid to waste.

In 2003, Bush sent Americans troops to ravage Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two million men, women and children were murdered and the country was ravaged.

In each instance, the news media called it war, but it was the invasion and destruction of these countries, because of monetary gain as well as generals who wanted to earn titles and medals and show the world that America was mighty.

Now Obama stands on hallowed ground and announces that the “war” is over. What war?

It was never a war, it was invasion and destruction on a mass scale, yet Bush handed out medals and titles to his troops, and you hear about the so-called “American war hero, who did a tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan”.

Are they proud of what they did?

Yunus Patel
Durban, South Africa