That niggly question ...

I guess the question still remains, same as yesterday, last week, last month, and last year. In fact, for three and a half years now, thoughtful Americans who love their country deeply have been asking “Why?”

Why is America fighting a war in Iraq?

What, exactly, is our mission there?

As Codpiece joked with reporters yesterday about their temporary digs across the street from the White House, four more American soldiers died in Iraq. Ten more Iraqi civilians died, too. On Sunday, 20 Iraqi civilians died.

Well, we’re not there because Saddam Hussein had anything to do with Sept. 11.

Codpiece said so during the press conference. That should clear things up nicely for all those mouth-breathing Americans who still think the Iraqi president ordered the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. And I’m sure that our soldiers serving in the middle of the hornets’ nest – the 90 percent who’ve been brainwashed into believing that Saddam was the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks – are also scratching their heads, befuddled.

From the press conference transcripts:

Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?

Bush: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attacks upon the World Trade Center.

Bush: Nothing. Except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack (except they did suggest it, many times) Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully materialize, Ken.

Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. (sigh) I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill, to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

And one way to defeat that -- you know, defeat resentment -- is with hope. And the best way to do hope is through a form of government.

Now I said, going into Iraq, we've got to take these threats seriously before they fully materialize. I saw a threat.

I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him. Now the question is: How do we succeed in Iraq?

And you don't succeed by leaving before the mission is complete, like some in this political process are suggesting.

Ahhh. I think I've got it now. The Iraqi people were resentful of Saddam’s viciousness and needed some hope. So to give them hope we went in and bombed the hell out of them, occupied their country, made a horrific hash out of the post-war period, and set ourselves, a bunch of corporations and a handful of Iraqi opportunists up to make a shitload of cash out the chaos. We made ourselves a nice, fortified Green Zone so Burger King could serve up freedom fries and Whoppers. We started building huge military installations while those hopeful Iraqi people, freed from the threat of Saddam once and for all, suddenly found themselves being oppressed and slaughtered by the violent, narrow-minded Dark-Ages mullahs.

After all, no matter how we try to gussy it up, the puppet government in Iraq hasn’t got the power to enforce even the simplest of secular laws.

Saddam was an asshole, but he was a secular asshole. Under Saddam, the various religions and sects might not have liked each other much, but kids went to school, women were allowed to get an education -- including college -- and they weren’t required to cover themselves from head to toe just in case they inadvertently made some horny goat of a man lust in his heart. Iraq was the most progressive, educated Muslim country in the Middle East.

No, it wasn’t perfect. Western sanctions had reduced the amount of food an average Iraqi could get, the water wasn’t always sparkling clean, and electricity wasn’t on 24-7.

But as long as you could stay on Saddam’s good side, you did OK.

Recently, a National Public Radio reporter in Baghdad informed listeners that religious extremists murdered a shepherd because, well, he wouldn’t diaper his goats to hide their naughty bits. And a grocer was killed because the stalks of celery in his market were too close to the tomatoes, lewdly suggesting – the horror – erect male genitalia.

Iraq is now in midst of civil war. They’re killing each other because of immodest goats and indecent vegetables. Simplistic? Yes. True? Yes.

But back to the point of this meandering post – why are we still hunkered down in Iraq, sending our kids out to be blown up by roadside bombs?

Once again: Exactly what is our mission there, Mr. President?

We got Saddam. He didn’t have any WMDs, but what the hell, he wanted them. Fine. Now we’re sitting in the middle of the shitpile we made as the country explodes around us, for all the world like stupid kids who started a huge grass fire while playing with matches.

Iran is sitting by, too, waiting for the right moment to step in and take the jewel – the second largest oil-producing country in the world – it’s always wanted.

So, are we still sitting there watching the grass fire blow up into a conflagration so Iran can’t steal the oil we stole for ourselves? Because we all know, down deep where it counts, that this war was about oil.

If so, we deserve to burn.

If bringing hope, freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq was the reason, the mission, the point of all the lost lives on both sides, we’ve failed miserably. Instead, we’ve brought hell on earth down upon the Iraqi people. They have no hope at all now, nothing but the grim promise of generations of senseless death, squalor, hopelessness and terrible oppression ahead.

Someone said, a long time ago, that you can’t force democracy at the point of a gun. What a damned shame Codpiece never learned that one – and, if this last press conference was any indication, he still hasn’t.