Reflections on the Eve of a possible Third U.S.-Iraq War

From bitter experience, we learned the hard lessons of Mission Creep:

* In Korea (where, over half a century later, we still have troops),

            * In Vietnam

                        * In Afghanistan

                                    * In Iraq-II(**)

But now, a Shiny Object has swum into our ken!

Bring on the flashie-thingie!!

Let those lessons be forgot !!!

(** That is to say, the second U.S.-Iraq War, launched by Bush the Lesser.  Iraq-I, that of Bush the Wiser, accomplished its stated mission of kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, and, mission indeed accomplished, went home.)

[Update 18 August 2014]  If we do wade back in to Iraq, it should be for the defense of America, and not for the freaking Yazidis.

We keep seeing headlines like this (today, from Reuters):

            Islamic State 'massacres' 80 Yazidis in north Iraq

typically accompanied by soulful photos of photogenic women and children.

But if our goal were to prevent massacres, we might just as well intervene in Syria instead.  In the same time-period, ISIL slaughtered six or seven hundred tribesmen there (specifically, the Chaïtat), who had dared to oppose them.  And this, in the signature method of the new Caliphate:  by beheading.  (These guys really have a "thing” for severed heads.)  This gets much less publicity, since only males were slain, plus it’s Sunni-on-Sunni;  so who cares.

Sentimentalism will always moon over the picturesque exotic oppressed minority;  fine.  But that should not dictate foreign policy, nor drag us into yet another unwinnable war.