Last week, twenty-three years later, the last US troops have been withdrawn from Iraq. I think almost every American would agree with one thing about that particular foreign war: It did not bring freedom to the Iraqi people, at least not freedom the way that libertarians define the term. Instead, it brought what US interventionism traditionally brings to foreign lands: death, destruction, injuries, maiming, and impoverishment, not to mention a government in which Iran and Iran-aligned political and militia groups exercise substantial influence.

It's probably also worth mentioning that under the Iraqi constitution, Islam is the official religion of the state and a "foundation source of legislation" and that no law in Iraq may contradict the established provisions of Islam (even though the same provision also prohibits laws that contradict democratic principles and constitutionally protected rights and freedoms).

Iraq is hardly a place that most Americans would regard as an ordinary vacation destination. That's because they wouldn't it find it safe to vacation there, especially given the deep animosity that many Iraqis have toward the United States, notwithstanding "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

The US military withdrawal from Iraq is not as ignominious as the withdrawal from Afghanistan after some 20 years of occupation, nor does it resemble the humiliating US withdrawal from Vietnam but it can be — and should be — an opportunity for Americans to engage in some serious soul-searching about the concept of foreign interventionism that has become a normal and permanent way of life for the American people. This is especially true given the ongoing fiasco of President Trump's unconstitutional war on Iran, which has wreaked untold death, destruction, suffering, injuries, and impoverishment on the Iranian people, just like US interventionism did to the people of Iraq under the rubric of bringing them "freedom."

Ever since I was born, it seems that America has mostly been at war. The Cold War, which never really ended, especially given what has effectively become a US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. The Vietnam War. The drug war. The war on immigrants. The Persian Gulf War. The war on terrorism. The war on Afghanistan. The war on Iraq. The war on Venezuela. The war on Russia. The war on Iran. State-orchestrated assassinations. Economic warfare on much of the world in the form of sanctions, embargoes, and blockades.

Martin Luther King Jr. put it well when he referred to the US government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." It has always been assumed that all this massive death, destruction, and suffering on people "over there" would have no adverse effect on people here at home. That delusion came to an end with the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the attacks on CIA personnel in northern Virginia, and, of course, the 9/11 attacks, all of which were "blowback" from US interventionism abroad.

There has also been the massive erosion of civil liberties and privacy here at home at the hands of our government, in the purported attempt to keep us "safe" from the dangers that such foreign interventionism produces.

There is also the out-of-control federal spending and debt that increasingly threaten serious fiscal consequences for the country.

Finally, as I have long contended, the periodic mass killings at the hands of "off-kilter" people here in the United States are, I submit, copycat killings that mirror the mass killings of people overseas at the hands of the US Empire.

None of this is necessary. There is a way out of this highly dysfunctional way of life. That's where the soul-searching comes into play. Do Americans want to continue living this way of life? Or would Americans prefer to live in a normal society, one where their own government is no longer the greatest purveyor of violence in the world?

If Americans would rather live in a normal and healthy society, that necessarily means bringing an immediate end to America's policy of foreign interventionism. No more invasions, occupations, bombings, assassinations, sanctions, embargoes, and blockades. It also means no more foreign military bases. Simply bring all US. troops home from everywhere and abandon all foreign military installations.