America Won the War Against Iraq?

I just came across a Time Magazine publication titled 21 Days to Baghdad: The Inside Story of How America Won the War Against Iraq, which was published some time around August, 2003. Reading that title actually illicited a giggle out of me. Wow. We won the war? So why is everyone still talking about the war in Iraq? You mean, it didn't end when Saddam Hussein was toppled from power?

Wait. I vaguely seem to remember something about President Bush landing on an aircraft carrier sporting a codpiece and stating something about combat operations being over. But I thought that was all a dream. And yet here, in beautiful glossy photographs, is a 160 page account of how we sallied forth and kicked ass. Proof that my memory is as faulty as ever. See? We did when that war.

Well, the elation was short-lived. As I usually do when I load my web browser, I checked the news. The first article I saw was titled Ambushes kill 20 as Shiites mass. That would be in Iraq. It chronicled how gunmen, some on rooftops, ambushed Shiite pilgrims walking “in their tens of thousands to a sacred shrine” for a major festival in Baghdad, killing up to 20 and wounding more than 300. Then my addled, unreliable brain presented to me recent memories of all sorts of violence, death and degradation in Iraq, as well as a list that's still fresh in my mind of the 24 U.S. soldiers that were killed in July. It's probably a good thing we won the war in Iraq back in 2003. Think how much worse it would be otherwise.

I also came across an article titled Dozens of Taliban killed in heavy fighting. That would be in Afghanistan. Anyone remember Afghanistan? Yeah. We won that war, too. Most people don't even realize we're still over there, um, providing security. It's interesting to see the spin in the American media on this one. In the mainstream media they mention that Taliban fighters have been killed. On Conservative media outlets, they instead use the term “suspected Afghan militants.” Because, you see, we defeated the Taliban. We won the war against Afghanistan back before we won the war against Iraq, don't ya know.

I'm not sure what to think of all this. My memory brings to my mind a lot of disturbing facts and images. On a daily basis the news brings to my attention more death and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of the fact that we won our fights in both places years ago, and in spite of the general perception in some quarters that my memories are unreliable.

Rather than consider uncomfortable thoughts, I think I'll take some time and settle down with my copy of 21 Days to Baghdad: The Inside Story of How America Won the War Against Iraq. I'm tired of all these people who practice what President Bush calls “the politics of pessimism.” I think it would do me good to look through 160 pages of glossy color photographs that proved way back in 2003 that we did a good thing in Iraq, that President Bush is not the meandering idiot that people make him out to be, and that when he landed on that aircraft carrier, declared combat operations at an end, and stated “mission accomplished,” it was a moment that we all could be proud to be Americans.

Ah, how I miss the good old days. Anyone have a flag I can wave? And, well, maybe a vicodin to help take the edge off of my determinedly unreliable memory?