It's the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq

 by the US and its "coalition of the willing". There hasn't been as much retrospective in the media as I thought there would be or should be about this chapter of recent history. The Gallup public opinion poll says the majority view is that the war was a mistake but the margin of difference between those who believe that and those who deny it is only 11 percentage points: 53% that it was a mistake, 42% that it was not. Those in the 42% really worry me. What can they be thinking?

I feel very sorry for the Iraqi people. I know that there are some Iraqis who feel that the removal of Saddam Hussein was worth the death, the suffering, the fear and the destruction of the war. I must assume that for them this is true but I find it hard to imagine how it can be. Perhaps these are individuals who by chance were among the most to suffer from Saddam's rule but among the least to suffer from the war and the occupation.

Remember Riverbend, author of the Baghdad Burning blog? She and much of her family fled to Syria in September of 2007 and her last blog post is dated October 22, 2007. No one seems to know what became of her since. Now a terrible war rages in Syria. Riverbend, it seems, can't get a break.

UPDATE: Riverbend is back with a new post to her blog dated Tuesday, April 09, 2013.