{"id":5723,"date":"2011-12-15T08:42:36","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T14:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/xblog\/?p=1670"},"modified":"2011-12-15T08:42:36","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T14:42:36","slug":"iraq-war-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/15\/iraq-war-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq War Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Iraq is now an &#8220;independent, free and sovereign&#8221; country according the the US Government which, for eight years, eight months, and twenty five days, has occupied the nation with a massive military presence.  <\/p>\n<p>The war officially ended this morning at 5:15 AM eastern time (1:15PM in Iraq) at a quiet ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>All the troops are coming home before Christmas<sup>1<\/sup>.  <\/p>\n<p>4,487 US troops were killed and about 30,000 wounded. As usual, the number of others killed and wounded is in dispute and seems more a matter of politics than reality, despite the fact that they are actual people.  More than 100,000 Iraqis were killed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/middle_east\/iraq-war-draws-to-quiet-close\/2011\/12\/14\/gIQAPEjLvO_story_1.html\">according to the Washington Post<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p>The total cost of the war was approximately $800,000,000,000.  That&#8217;s less than $3,000 per person in the US, which isn&#8217;t bad, stretched out over several years, for a major war.  <\/p>\n<p>The Iraqis are very appreciative of the efforts.  In Falluja, the site of one of the most significant battles in the early days of the war, thousands of Sunni Iraqi&#8217;s took to the streets and burned flags of Israel and the US.  <\/p>\n<p>Sectarian violence is expected to flare up soon after US troops have left.  <\/p>\n<p>_________________________<br \/>\n<sup>1<\/sup>Except the ones that aren&#8217;t.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iraq is now an &#8220;independent, free and sovereign&#8221; country according the the US Government which, for eight years, eight months, and twenty five days, has occupied the nation with a massive military presence. The war officially ended this morning at 5:15 AM eastern time (1:15PM in Iraq) at a quiet ceremony. All the troops are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/15\/iraq-war-ends\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Iraq War Ends<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[464,465,5020,912],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-1uj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}