What a waste

Mission accomplished?

Like almost all wars, the U.S. invasion of Iraq that began 10 years ago tomorrow was a complete waste of life, treasure and time.

It was commemorated today in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad with a barrage of car bombings that killed scores and wounded hundreds.

I predicted in 2003 that more Iraqis would die due to our unprovoked invasion of Iraq than died under Saddam Hussein.

Sadly, that is coming true.

Many compared the Iraq War with the Vietnam War. Besides being proxy wars for the real enemies -- the Soviet Union and China then; Saudi Arabia now -- the Iraq War proved to be quite different, and worse.

The catchphrase during the Vietnam War was: We had to "destroy the village in order to save it."

In Iraq, we had to destroy the country in order to save Israel, but, more importantly, to get Iraq's oil.

If Iraq had no oil, like North Korea, we would never have even thought of invading.

Aside from destabilizing Iraq and the region for years, the war made Iraq align with Iran, a country it waged war against in the 1980s. We supplied arms to Saddam Hussein then to kill Iranians and also his own people.

The invasion tarnished the reputation of the U.S. as a force for good in this world. We are slowly reclaiming that reputation.

We supposedly invaded Iraq (funded by a tax cut, of course) because of the bogus claim that the country had "weapons of mass destruction."

Ironically, the invasion sent the message out loud and clear: If you have weapons of mass destruction, like Pakistan or North Korea, we will not invade you. And, if you don't have nukes, you damn well better them or we will invade you.

Consequently, nuclear weapons are proliferating, particularly in countries like Iran and North Korea.

All those who say that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Yes, and it would be better off without Kim Jong-un, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Joseph Kony and on and on and on. If you want them, go get them.

We got rid of Muammar Kadhafi, Hosni Mubarak, and Ben Ali without firing a shot. Actually, we let the people of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia decide their own fates. As they should.

I feel terrible for all the dead and those horribly maimed for life in America, in our allied nations and in Iraq because of our reckless, incompetent and immoral invasion 10 years ago. The post-traumatic stress will harm thousands more.

Like Vietnam, all that suffering for nothing.