Charles Krauthammer takes us to task for those blaming  America for the deaths in Iraq…

We have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq. But when Arabs kill Arabs and Shiites kill Shiites and Sunnis kill all in a spasm of violence that is blind and furious and has roots in hatreds born long before America was even a republic, to place the blame on the one player, the one country, the one military that has done more than any other to try to separate the combatants and bring conciliation is simply perverse.

It infantilizes Arabs. It demonizes Americans. It willfully overlooks the plainest of facts: Iraq is their country. We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war.

His entire premise overlooks one thing…Why? The American Congress did not vote to go to war to “midwife freedom”. The American people did not ask to have their sons and daughters placed in the middle of the oldest religious strife on the planet. Three thousand year old tribal warfare will not be stopped with more war. Good God, the Jewish people were driven out of this region, returned, and are still being killed today in the effort to run them out again. Does anyone think that this region will see peace as long as it benefits some to see them at war?

Again, I ask. Why is America in Iraq? Besides oil, what does this country have that we are willing to die for? Who is it that thinks America’s blood is as cheap as Iraq’s oil? Only those who never bleed for it.

Source: Charles Krauthammer – Who’s to Blame for The Killing – washingtonpost.com