Our support in Iraq has created a criminals paradise.

Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police. Families build houses illegally on government land, carwashes steal water from public pipes, and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market.

Painkillers for cancer (from the Ministry of Health) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Ministry of Electricity) go for $200 each, and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Ministry of Education) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged.

“Everyone is stealing from the state,” said Adel Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. “It’s a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.”

One of the things about this that is the most upsetting, besides the number of American lives wasted to create this chaos, is that the things they are stealing were paid for with our taxpayer dollars. We paid for those books, and those medicines, and those electricity meters.

And the money that they are using to bribe the police? That also come from us.

We continue to throw money and American lives at this country in the vain attempt to buy it into complying with our will. It is capitalism taken to an insane level. As if just having access to American money and items will make them love us and want to be just like us. It is an ignorant idea that does not respect the cultural realities of that country.

So after all of these years, this is the best we can provide? A giant black market, run by criminals, and taking advantage of the average Iraqi citizen.

How is anybody proud of this?