Approaching the West — Page 86
A pproaching the West—86 The alleged plot to attack New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport shows that such groups are now breeding in Trinidad, Tobago and Guyana. Thus the south of the U. S. A. is not safe. Potential threats of attacks are now coming from Caribbean and Latin America as well. Therefore, it seems that so far the war on terrorism is proving counter-productive. After Afghanistan, we went after Iraq. The whole world knows well that Iraq had no role in September 11 attacks and had no established connection with al-Q ā ‘idah. However, after 9/11 attacks, the U. S. government claimed that Iraq was a threat to the United States on the pretext that Iraq could begin to use its alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction to aid terrorist groups. The Muslims of the world saw this just an excuse to dominate a region that was rich in oil, and it had nothing to do with the allegation of having weapons of mass destruction. Invasion of Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003. Saddam’s regime was quickly toppled, and only 40 days after the invasion, on May 1, 2003, President Bush claimed victory in Iraq. But do we really have a victory in Iraq? The war is still going on. In Vietnam, the US spent a total of $120 billion to fight the war for eight and a half years. This year, the Senate has approved $120 billion war -funding only for the current year! The total cost of Iraq War is in access of $1. 2 trillion! More than 3,500 U. S. soldiers have been killed, and more than 22,000 U. S. Military personnel have been wounded in action so far. An estimated 67,000 Insurgents have been killed or detained. In addition, more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians