US should acknowledge criminality of Iraq war

Eleven years and three months since we illegally and immorally invaded Iraq, it's time the US confessed the criminality of this atrocity which has created endless death and destruction to that pitiful land. Such action would spur a number of benefits. It would begin to restore America's moral compass fractured when our response to terrorist attacks was launching our own terrorist attacks against a hated, but non-belligerent state. It would begin the process of holding those responsible for our war crimes accountable in court, that of public opinion if not the court of international law. It would bring a measure of justice to the millions killed, injured or displaced by our criminal war, which continues the destruction of Iraq today and into the endless future two and a half years after we officially ended it. 

But the most important reason for admitting our criminality is that it will prevent the US from going back into Iraq militarily to prevent it's partitioning into a Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'ite sector. That is occurring right before our eyes as the Shi'ite puppet Maliki we installed in 2006, never planned to share his new found power and oil wealth with either the Kurds or the Sunnis. His totalitarian tilt is what gives the Sunni rebels legitimacy in the Sunni areas they are gobbling up. The sending of 275 GI's sent to protect our Xanadu of an embassy, the 300 military 'advisors' to coach an uncoachable Iraqi army, and the president's pronouncements we may start bombing again do not bode well for America staying out of the fight. That would be a colossal mistake. Admit our culpability for the unfolding bloody partitioning of Iraq and we can devote our energies to diplomacy with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran. Admit our culpability and the only political leaders and analysts allowed to weigh in on the solution would be those untainted by their lust for criminal war back in 2003. Instead, war criminals like Dick Cheney and war mongers like Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, get the most airtime to browbeat and goad the president into blasting thousands more to smithereens. That is reprehensible and amounts to their being encouraged to foment more criminal war.  

 

After WWII the war criminals in Japan and Germany were either executed or imprisoned. The unindicted war mongers were told to shut up. We didn't hear folks in either country bragging about their war crimes like their US counterparts do and incredibly, demanding more of the same. Why can't the US follow their example?