U.S. involvement in Iraq war eclipses WWII

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle courtesy of AlterNet:

The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II.

As of Sunday, the conflict in Iraq has raged for three years and just over eight months.

Only the Vietnam War (eight years, five months), the Revolutionary War (six years, nine months), and the Civil War (four years) have engaged America longer.

Click here for the rest.

I suppose that most historians don't consider it actually to be a war, but it's worth noting that it took over a decade, after the Spanish-American war was over, to subdue the insurgency in the Philippines--silly Filipinos, they thought we were coming there to liberate them from the Spanish; boy, were they wrong. I wonder why nobody ever talks about this forgotten war? Probably because it was an imperial war, and widespread knowledge of it would simply ruin the "fact" that Americans don't engage in imperialism.

Anyway, I pretty much expect our involvement in Iraq to continue for years to come. It's a much bigger prize-of-empire than the Philippines ever was, sitting right in the middle of all those oil reserves, which will ultimately allow the US to leverage its massive military power into economic world dominance via control of oil markets. But for that to happen, we have to put down the rebellion, and it appears that the Iraqis are at least as determined to throw us out as the Filipinos were, and my guess is that they are more determined. But, in the long run, I don't think that's going to matter much to the Washington establishment. Democrat, Republican, it doesn't really matter who's got the White House or Congress: it's frightening, but I'm pretty certain at this point that all this talk about withdrawal is only going to turn out to be talk. The excuse now is that chaos will reign if we leave, but I'm starting to think that Syria and Iran would never allow that to happen; they'd invade and establish a Shiite controlled state under their domination. So, I think, the real reason we aren't leaving, apart from controlling the oil, is that we want to be the ones to push Iraq around.

All hail the mighty American Empire!

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