The Obama administration’s renaming of Operation Iraqi Freedom, fools no one.
President Obama’s administration hopes to shed new light on Operation Iraqi Freedom by faking a smile and renaming the war to Operation New Dawn, according to an article by The Washington Post.
Operation New Dawn will come into effect as early as September 2010.
Other titles such as “Get Us the Hell Out of There Already,” “Yeah, I Don’t Know Why We’re Occupying Iraq, Either,” and “This is All a Scam to Get Your Fucking Oil” seemed to be too descriptive for Obama and his minions. After much debate, Operation New Dawn came out on top.
Seriously, though, Operation New Dawn? If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought Stephanie Meyer decided to torment us with yet another piece of crappy “literature,” but that is besides the point.
I would like to think the current administration doesn’t take us to be such fools that we could be tricked into a sham like that. But, alas, here we are again.
Empty promises and fancy titles do not, and cannot, make up for the fact that the United States has been at war with Iraq for more than seven years now.
Seven years of death, destruction and a massive deficit caused by the United States gives Operation New Dawn a bittersweet tone — one more bitter than sweet.
According to the Congressional Research Service, $747.3 billion dollars have been spent funding Operation Iraqi Freedom. What’s even more disturbing about this figure is that it does not account for soldiers’ regular pay, or their potential future medical costs.
United States soldiers have been sacrificing their lives for a seemingly pointless war, their death toll reaching 4,394 as of April 16. This is according to a figure posted by defense.gov. Let’s not forget about Iraqi soldiers. Their death toll is 9,431 as of March 29. That figure was estimated by usliberals.com.
Is Operation New Dawn sounding better yet? Didn’t think so.
Since March 2003, there have been 95,888-104,595 documented Iraqi civilian deaths, according to iraqbodycount.org.
Approximately 100,000 innocent Iraqi bystanders have fallen victim to America’s constant need to be the most powerful nation in the world, and this number does not even include American civilians or others of the like.
Honestly, one could go on for days with statistics and figures that blatantly outline why the U.S’ occupation of Iraq has gone on for far too long.
There is probably a reason why the United States is the only country occupying Iraq besides, well, Iraq, but we love our rose-colored glasses far too much to take them off.
How high must the death toll climb and how empty must our pockets become for those in the White House to wake up and realize that the U.S. is involved in its most counterproductive conflict to date? Changing the name of the war does not change the war.
Certainly the situation in the Middle East cannot be mostly blamed on Obama. Instead, blame should be placed on seven years of poor decision-making by the past and present administrations.
However, President Obama has been on the hope-train for far too long. He cannot expect to mask one of America’s darkest conflicts with a hokey name and consider it progress. Things were bad enough when “Dubya” decided to include “Freedom” in the title.
Jessica Wood is a junior biology major and a columnist for the Daily 49er.
Disclaimer: The Daily 49er is not responsible for Postings made on www.daily49er.wpengine.com. Persons commenting are solely responsible for Postings made on this website. Persons commenting agree to the Terms of Use of the website. If Postings do not abide by the Rules of Conduct or Posting Regulations as listed in the Postings Policy, the Daily 49er has all rights to delete Postings as it deems necessary. The Daily 49er strongly advises individuals to not abuse their First Amendment rights, and to avoid language suggestive of hate speech. This site also encourages users to make Postings relevant to the article or other Postings.