As my fourth graders would say: "Duuuh!" The dutiful bureaucrats at "Foggy Bottom," the old nickname for the U. S. State Department, led by Hillary Clinton, are complaining that our puppet president in Iraq, Nouri Al Malaki, is forming unofficial alliances with Iran and allowing arms shipments to Assad’s Syria through its territory. Once again: "Duuuh!"
Almost everybody on the planet understood that, with the elimination of the minority Sunni dictatorship under Saddam, the Shia majority in Iraq would sooner or later reconcile with Shia Iran on the strength of their shared religious beliefs. That is everyone but Dubya and his dimwitted neo-con advisors and the "Foggy Bottom" toadies.
The end result of our futile effort was to unify the two Shiite entities in the Middle East. This would be a "Three Stooges" comedy if it wasn’t for the loss of thousands of young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis shocked and awed to death. So we failed in our objective -- so what? Just think what the trillions of dollars poured down the rat hole and extorted by Halliburton and Blackwater could have done to bolster social programs here in the U.S. and here in Vermont, to avoid the pain of cuts to vital services. It’s just a matter of connecting the dots!
AL SALZMAN
Fairfield
Join The Conversation
Welcome to your discussion forum:
Verified accounts are now required for immediate posting. Please verify your e-mail address in Disqus, or sign in with your social networking account. You may also post using your e-mail address (which will remain private), but those posts will first need to be approved by the moderator. Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion or approval of the Bennington Banner. This forum encourages open, honest, respectful and insightful discussions; there is no need to be offensive. Read our guidelines.