U.S. Marks End to 9-Year War, Leaving an Uncertain Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/middleeast/end-for-us-begins-period-of-uncertainty-for-iraqis.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Arango&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 9:23 AM
Subject: re: U.S. Marks End to 9-Year War, Leaving an Uncertain Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The president who promised us more transparency in government is now enmeshed in a dangerous double game. He must convince the American people that pulling American troops out of Iraq means that we're out of there. Simultaneously, he must convince the Iraqi people that it's not yet safe to resume their sectarian civil war.  The domestic side of that is easy; The few Americans who read foreign news get it through a small number of controllable corporate media sources. The Iraqi side is harder; people there know well that most of America's forces in Iraq have been "contractors","advisers" or "embassy staff", rather that "troops" for more than a year already.  To maintain the illusion that we have extricated ourselves from a new stable Iraq through our elections in November 2012 will cost tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars, if it can be done at all.

Barry Haskell Levine