The only thing worse than a very costly war is a war that is significantly less costly, because the latter often leads to the former. This doesn't mean that the former can't lead to a repeat, of course, as the lovely first half of the 20th century shows. It is very, very, perilous for any war to be viewed as low in cost, however, since it often leads to miscalculations, either at the end of said war, since the temptation is to get it over before things turn really nasty, or in estimating what the cost of the next war will be. The result is the same, however. The seeds are sown for some future bitter harvest.

It wasn't just our troops in Saudi. It was all the Iraqi children we were murdering by attempting to enforce sanctions against Saddam that had Bin Laden in a lather. No one remembers how Saddam desperately needed weapons grade chlorine to treat the water and all the children who died?

Our civilized restraint in Desert Storm had other results. A good number of people (apparently) believed that we didn't go to Bagdad because we couldn't. Either we didn't have the ability or didn't have the balls. Saddam presented his defeat as a victory, and he wasn't far wrong from his point of view.

That was a dangerous illusion to allow. People make decisions based on what they believe their enemy will do.

You are right on target. I showed up in Saudi Arabia as an Ensign the month before we started the air campaign and made LTJG right after the "truce" was signed. I spent the balance of my career engaged in one way or another with the NAG (Northern Arabian (Persian) Gulf), OSW (Operation Southern Watch), Kuwait, Bahrain, Desert FOX (another bad example of a military op), until it was all full circle when I came back from swimming at the pool at NSA Bahrain to watch the second plane hit the WTC.

There is a reason that we had to invade in 2003 - we had the wrong Political and Strategic Military Endstate for Gulf War I. The critical lesson, one that many freely talk about now (though has been true for thousands of years), is that for a totalitarian government, you do not defeat them by destroying their military or taking back land - a dictator only defines power by where he is sitting, if his head is still attached to his body, and if he is still has power. Until you take one of those three things away - you have not defeated him.

All GWI is, is a blueprint for another, larger conflict down the road.

Playing the devil's advocate here, perhaps the question should be why we went after Saddam in the first place? Yes the argument that he would have control over massive oil rerserves and threaten the Saudis but so what? I think what people forgot is that he still has to sell it. The oil is only worth something if you're willing to sell it.

I think the argument could be made that perhaps had we let Saddam run the gauntlet and actually let him take Saudi Arabia, we would not be dealing with Wahhbism today. After all, he would have certainly dealt with the radicals, ah, more efficiently than we would. And yes the oil would still flow because Saddam loved his palaces.

Yes I suppose this would leave a bad taste for some people when I have to compare Saddam to say, the Saudi Royals or our other ME 'allies', the differences start coming down to wardrobe styles.

True, Desert Storm is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences. You could write up a pretty long list of what Bush 1 and the hawks of 1990 intended to achieve, and most of those would've been positive had they come to pass. But in the actual event, the coalition that Bush formed fell apart when Bush bungled the first year or so of the postwar period and then was defeated in 1992. I'm of the opinion that the single worst decision of the postwar period was the failure to support, either overtly or covertly, the anti-Saddam rebellion in late 1991. And Bush's loss in the 1992 election was a second big factor. That defeat, and the policies of his opponent, said that the USA wasn't really interested in following through on the promise of Desert Storm. Combine that with the unpredicted power of the antiwar, anti-sanctions, anti-American groups in the rest of the West, and it's not hard to see how & why the situation deteriorated to where it is today.

For all its failures, though, I don't think Desert Storm qualifies as a pyrrhic victory. Iraqi Freedom might well do so, though. Bush II has accomplished something great there, but between the stark raving insanity of the anti-Bush media and the inability to counter Iran's takeover strategy in southern Iraq, the whole thing may yet become a disaster both foreign and domestic. The original vision of the Iraq War was a free and democratic Iraq that assisted us in surrounding and neutralizing Iran. But the reality that's taking shape threatens to create an alliance between Iran and Iraq, turning the entire Persian Gulf into a solid anti-American power bloc, with nuclear weapons to back up a powerful conventional army, and an even more powerful economic weapon in the form of oil.

And all because of the Traitorous Left. Sometimes I wish there was a way to ensure that the consequences of their treason would rebound on them in fullest measure, without catching any innocents in the crossfire.

"Vietnam Syndrome" is not new. I've been reading Grant's Memoirs, and I recognize it from afar - only it was the 1860's. The Newspapers preached defeat, the Democrats in Congress (and running for President in 1864) wanted to declare defeat and leave. The protests were worse - look at the NYC draft riots sometime.

This strain of thought is not new, and does not date from the 1960's.

But could Bush1 have sold a multi-year operation to a pre-9/11 American public? Was a bit of GWS necessary to get us over the hump to where we are today? Mightn't Bush1 have been defeated by a Dean or a Kerry in the middle of occupation--and would that have been worse? Would other pre-9/11 ME nations been actively against us instead of with us or idle? Would troops stationed in Iraq really be less offensive to OBL etc than troops in Saudi Arabia?

James,

I agree. Here's a good quote from Bruce Catton's Glory Road:

[The Democrats] wanted to oppose the party that was running the war, and in spite of themselves they could do no less than oppose the war itself. There could be no delicate shadings of action or belief. The administration was fighting for complete victory; to stand against the administration in the ordinary way, using the grips, feints, and arm locks of normal political struggling, meant in actual practice to stand for something less than victory--something a good deal less, perhaps, if the wrestling got really strenuous, so that the struggle might finally appear to be a struggle against the war itself rather than simply against the people who were conducting the war.

Today's Democrats seem to be in the same boat.

But I am NOT questioning their patriotism...

Bush Sr.'s decision not to support the insurrection of southern Iraq against Saddam Hussein has to be one of the largest betrayals of trust that our nation has ever witnessed.

Bush Sr. told the people of Iraq to rise up, and then he let Hussein kill them. I'm not surprised that ordinary Iraqis were suspicious of our intervention this time.

The worst part of GW1 was the coalition building. Not because we stood with the oppressors of the Middle East, although that was bad enough, but because we set the precedent that we would not act unilaterally in our own self-defense. That has come back to haunt us in a big way. We spent an entire year building the case for an invasion of Iraq, and gave Saddam way too much time to formulate contingency plans, and clean up WMD sites. It made the legitimacy of military action dependent on the number of nations we could get to go along with us. It gave France and Germany the illusion that they could veto our military plans, and made our allies strategic targets of the insurgency. It was probably the worst thing to happen to our foreign policy since Carter spent 444 days wringing his hands in the Rose Garden.

Ardsgaine, I would count the consensus-building as the 2nd giant mistake of that war. We'll be paying for that one for a long, long time.

However, GW1 did get us past a couple of things:
That our military is totally, utterly incompetent.
That our military equipment is too delicate and will fall apart, unlike the robust Soviet stuff.

Those two did not come to pass, and so war, conflict did again end two debates that had been ongoing since the Vietnam War and all through the 1980's. I remember those arguments very well. And now, they are gone.

Fabulous.

I don't get it.In which sense it is the Left's fault that the Iraqi Shiites elected Iranian-backed,Islamist parties to power?

So far,the story of the GWOT for the West has been:win the war,lose the peace.

Over and over again,free elections in ME countries have brought Islamic Fundies to power:UIA,Hamas,Ahmadinejad.

There are people on the Right,and the Left,who keep talking about these mysterious "reformers" that were so disenchanted with Bush I's (and Clinton's) support for ME autocracies as to lose faith in democratic reform altogether.

Never have I seen explained,beyond the examples of a few anomalous intellectuals,where these supposed ME liberals are lurking,and why exactly they need the go-ahead from Uncle Sam to show themselves.

How I wish that the al-Ummah,when looking at the corruption,dysfunction and poverty in their countries,would look at the West and say:"We need to be more like them!"

Instead,we get:"more Islam!"If Islam is down,it is because we're not pure enough!"

Maybe we should lay off this democracy-building agenda for awhile?

Jussi asked, "I don't get it.In which sense it is the Left's fault that the Iraqi Shiites elected Iranian-backed,Islamist parties to power?"

It's the Left's fault that nothing was done to stop it. In southern Iraq, in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, in Iran itself, islamist groups have obtained power only because they're well-armed, well-organized gangs who are willing to kill anyone who opposes them, while the Western Left refuses to let any of their opponents fight back. The Hamas victory in Gaza could have been prevented by letting Israel wage a fullscale war against Hamas, but the Western Left refused to allow that. The Iranian move-in on southern Iraq could have been prevented by coalition troops, but leftist policies forbade it. When the locals went to the coalition 'occupiers' and pleaded for help in fighting the Iranian-backed islamist militias, they were turned down because the British troops who are assigned to Basra have their hands tied by stupid leftist "hands-off" policies.

You could even say that the largely secular Shi'ite Arabs of southern Iraq are seeing a repeat of the betrayal that followed the first Gulf War. In 1991 they were encouraged to rise against Saddam and then not given any help against Saddam's counterstrike, so they wound up fighting tanks and helo-gunships with rifles, and Saddam's show of brutality preserved his regime for another twelve years. In 2004-05 they were encouraged to form a democratic society and then not given any help against the Iranian counterstrike, so they wound up as a mob of civilians with guns trying to fight a well-organized invading army. The same stupid mistake, brought about by the same stupid people, and chances are high that it will have the same devastating result: the hopes with which we launched Iraqi Freedom will dissolve in a sea of blood, and only the enemy will benefit.

Addendum:I agree with most of what John Derbyshire says in his column Hesperophobia,Cont.

It is worth I think,reading in its entirety,but I'll extract this bit:

That is the whole story. They hate us from wounded ethnic pride. They hate us because of our cultural superiority; which is to say, at one remove, our political superiority. They hate us because they can’t organize societies like ours, in which security, prosperity, and hope for the future are available to all, and creativity flourishes. They can’t, they know they can’t, and the knowledge drives them nuts.

This is,I fear,correct.While the ME and the Muslim World may be unreformable,at present,they may not be uncontainable.That is all I wanted to say.

[quote]Over and over again,free elections in ME countries have brought Islamic Fundies to power:UIA,Hamas,Ahmadinejad.[/quote]

Jussi:

Ahmadinejad won a free election? No, he didn't. And UIA is not a fundamentalist party, it is a coalition that includes religious groups. So?

Finally: Hamas. Well, no argument there, but I would argue that it carries far less water then you try to make it carry.

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "democracy is a process, not an event." That the Palestinians elected a fundamentalist group hardly disproves the theory that democracy is a moderating force. What happens next is much more important--does ruling a democratic people moderate Hamas? (Probably) If Hamas can't make the ox-carts run on time, will they be replaced by a group that can? (who knows?)

That's the real test--Is governmental success rewarded? Is failure punished? or does god tell everyone how to vote?

I have my suspicions, but it's too early to point to proof.

A couple of years ago after reading a lot of stuff, it struck me that Korea, Iran, Iraq and Viet Nam domestically all had 1 thing in common, unfinished business. They're all biting us in the ass at the same time cos we didn't finish it win or lose.

A few weeks later, someone actually wrote a column on that.

What we are seeing here is World War III, described by me here and here.

GW1 and GW2 are just battles in the war. We all need to adjust our thinking on this issue and start thinking strategically, not tactically.

RE: Basra et al, anyone else getting tired of cleaning up after Mother England's mistakes?

wolfwalker,thank you for your answer.It is ironic to think that,even if I agreed with you,I'd be more optimistic than I'm now.

Instead,what I see is the Muslim world determined,like the German nationalists of the 20's,to develop ever more hallucinatory versions of "Islam is the only answer" politics.
Geez,I hope I'm wrong.

TO: Stephen Green
RE: My Response....

....to this bout of angst is....

....HERE.

Enjoy,

Chuck(le)

What's important isn't that Hamas won this election, it's that they have *another* election and *another*. The practice of having free elections and opposition parties is more important than who wins.

Throwing in the towel because the people didn't elect the right party is missing the point that the process is far more important than the personalities. Because if the process is supported, the personalities will change on a pre-determined schedule.

One thing that we should insist on, however, is term limits. Maybe 4 and 4 like the US has is a bit short, but even a good leader should have to make way for another leader to keep everything flexible and give the opposition hope for the future.

Our devil's advocate asks why we did not just let Saddam take Saudi Arabia. ...a fair question, and the answer is that we could not afford to let this dangerous nutbag continue to develop weapons of mass destruction toward the goal of utter hegemony over the oil of the region. Well, I guess we could have, but that would have been an interesting future.

William Young suggests the gulf wars were just battles. I have always thought so as well. We have been at war with the region since the storming of our embassy in Iran. We arel only starting to wake up to the fact.

doug

TO: Julie
RE: 'Free' Elections?

"The practice of having free elections and opposition parties is more important than who wins." -- Julie

Hamas tends to kill their opposition, if they are effective.

Hard to have a 'free' election in that sort of environment.

Don't you think?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

I agree with Jussi. It's not the Left's fault that Bush has let the Islamist's take over in Iraq. It's Bush's inability to stand up to his critics, and argue, not for democracy, but freedom. There is a difference between these two concepts. Democracy is the tyranny of the mob. It is only as benign as the majority mood makes it at any given moment. Freedom is secured by a government that guarantees individual rights, and uses the rule of law to restrain the majority of the moment from violating those rights. This is what is lacking in Iraqi government and in the PA. We should have gone into Iraq determined to occupy the country for 5-10 years, and impose our own form of government on them, as we did in Japan and Germany. Bush & Co. allowed themselves to be stampeded by accusations that the war was a grab for oil, and that we intended to take over the country. They also have a huge blindspot when it comes to the marriage of church and state. They imagine that the assertion that Iraqi law must be grounded in Islamic principles is somehow benign. It isn't. Within five years after we leave Iraq, it will be a hostile Islamic state, as bad as Iran, unless we alter our course.

I'm not disagreeing with that, Chuck. But...

That's why I said it's not the *winning* that's the problem. They killed people anyhow, right? And I'm not saying to forgive past sins. I'm saying, merely, that free elections and opposition parties are more important than who wins *today*.

Going into a panic and throwing out democracy because people don't elect the right people is thinking that the person elected is more important than the process. Even the *idea* of free elections and opposition parties needs to be supported because beleif in the idea comes first. It incorporates the belief that elections *can* be won, so people don't *have* to be killed.

TO: Julie
RE: Killing the Opposition

"Going into a panic and throwing out democracy because people don't elect the right people is thinking that the person elected is more important than the process." -- Julie

I'm not going into a panic because the Palestinians decided to put a bunch of blood-thirsty killers in charge of their government.

US's got a pocket full o nukes that we can use to eliminate the problem, if necessary.

The idiology being, these people elected this goverment. They've made their bed. They can be burned in it, if they give US justification.

The process was there. They made their choice. Now they can either live or die with it.....

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Every people gets the governance it deserves.]

P.S. My point was that Hamas will behave like Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party. Or Hitler's National Socialist Party, now that they are in power.

This looks like your typical fascist take-over. It will result in the standard response, total annihilation of this particular state, in due time.

Sorry, Stephan, but you simply cannot have a relevant discussion of GW1 and it's effects without paying some attention to the fact that Bush-1 didn't finish the job. Here's why:

In WWII, we defined what it means to do war with the USA. We made it known that if you go to war with us, we would bring the fight to your territory, we would wreck your country, remove your government and replace it with a government that we like.

Then we got away from that. First in Korea, then in Vietnam, we fought wars against enemies that were still left standing when we backed off. GW1 was the ultimate betrayal of the standard set in "Big Two". We fought for a bit, then went home, leaving the enemy to declare victory (albeit, not credibly).

Call me an idiot for this point of view if you like, you wouldn't be the first, but the way I see it the world would be safer place for both us and our potential foes if they knew -- KNEW -- that any war against America will result not just in their defeat, but in their total, final, and complete removal from this world. Waging war against the USA should be seen as a certain death sentence, not something that there is even a remote chance of surviving.

TO: Dave
RE: True

"...you simply cannot have a relevant discussion of GW1 and it's effects without paying some attention to the fact that Bush-1 didn't finish the job." -- Dave

I mention that at my fisking of Stephen's article over at COMensarations.

The whole thing, GWII, was predicated on the circumstances in which US had to fight GWI.

I mentioned that some time ago here, but I doubt if Stephen read that bit, or remembered it.

Those circumstances remained when it came time to engage in GWII. Hence our use of Kuwait as the base of operations, instead of Saudi Arabia.

From the logistical aspect of waging modern warfare in far-away places, Host Nation Support [HSN] is an essential part of a successful operation.

Without the Saudi HSN in GWI, there would have been NO LIBERATION of Kuwait. And the Saudis were not, repeat NOT, going to sanction "On to Baghdad" becaues they knew the Shi'a would take control of Iraq after Hussein fell.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

P.S. If you didn't follow the allusion to HSN, we had to move our base of operations from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait for GWII because the Saudis would not allow US to use the bases we had established there for GWI to conduct an "on to Baghdad" campaign for GWII. Kuwait was MORE than willing to help US with that.

Chuck, do you remember hearing the BushHitler fanatics going on about how Bush was going to make himself grand emperor and we'd never have another election?

Compared to that delusional silliness, there's real reason to think that Hamas will rig it so they never lose. I just don't think that it's possible to decide that the "winner" isn't legitimate while trying to claim that it's wrong to decide that the "winner" isn't legitimate. The process of free elections has to be supported so that it can continue to be supported.

We can always hope, you know, that the idea of responding to a lost election will be to do better next time. Rather than declare that the proof of a false outcome is the simple fact the party lost.

TO: Julie
RE: Bushitler

"Chuck, do you remember hearing the BushHitler fanatics going on about how Bush was going to make himself grand emperor and we'd never have another election?" -- Julie

Yeah. Did it happen? Will it happen?

Not bloody likely.

RE:

"Compared to that delusional silliness, there's real reason to think that Hamas will rig it so they never lose. I just don't think that it's possible to decide that the "winner" isn't legitimate while trying to claim that it's wrong to decide that the "winner" isn't legitimate. The process of free elections has to be supported so that it can continue to be supported." -- Julie

When the Republicans become a terrorist organization, as Hamas is, I'll expect them to kill the opposition.

As it is, todate, in the US, the Democrats have a stronger tradition of terrorist activities than do the Republicans. Just look at the last general election.

As for Hamas, I expect they will do everything within their power to retain power in Palestine. That includes doing the Democrats a few better.

RE: Hope Springs Eternal

"We can always hope, you know, that the idea of responding to a lost election will be to do better next time. Rather than declare that the proof of a false outcome is the simple fact the party lost." -- Julie

But I don't have much hope for Hamas. As I said, they resemble Ba'ath and National Socialists too much.

We'll see.....

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. I'm hardly in a panic over this. As I said, one incident of organized ricin poisoning that can be tracked back to Hamas and we'll eliminate them as a problem for the Israelis.

I would like to state for the record that the stated reason we engaged in Iraq 1.0 was to come to the defense of a regime that was totalitarian, opperssive, and mysoginist.
Why wouldn't Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia be "shoulder to shoulder" with us?

TO: flounder
RE: Foundering

"Why wouldn't Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia be "shoulder to shoulder" with us?" -- flounder

Syria? Because it has a Ba'ath party government too.
Egypt? They're more afraid of Israel than of Iraq.
Saudi Arabia? If you were asleep then, they DID. But only so far as liberating Kuwait.

Hope that helps....

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Yeah, the resolution of the first gulf war is looking more and more like the Versailles treaty of the '90s.
As a sidenote, consider the political fortunes of one of the main architects of that armistice, Collin Powell. He was a up and comer, often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate until his handiwork started to unravel. I do tend to agree that there probably was no political will to go after Saddam then, but we'll never know because no one tried to make the case.

TO: ArtDodger
RE: Powell

"...Collin Powell. He was a up and comer, often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate until his handiwork started to unravel." -- ArtDodger

His presidential hopes died with the first victim of Gulf War Syndrome.

He, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the man who approved the untested drug to be administered to all the men and women who deployed to the Persian Gulf.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: All
RE: Correction

Not 'untested'. Rather, 'unapproved', as far as the FDA was concerned.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Someone names Julie mentioned that Saddam-era Iraq lacked chlorine to treat drinking water because of economic sanctions (i.e. children died). Chlorine (Cl 2) is easily produced by running a strong electric current through a saline solution--this process is called electrolysis, the same used to produce hydrogen gas. Any high school chemistry book will cover this topic in detail.

So Julie's assertion about the lack of chlorine to purify water is false.

Well, *duh* James. Of course it was false. Didn't stop the hype about how we were killing Iraqi children though. Saddam could have purified all the water he wanted to purify if he wasn't more interested in trying to claim that we were maliciously keeping him from doing it.

http://www.reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml

A real quick google search got me that... right at the top.

Here's a quote from the first paragraph...

"Is it official U.N. belief that 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 are dying each month due to its own policy, as writers of letters to virtually every U.S. newspaper have stated repeatedly during the past three years?"

Somehow I have a clear memory of those repeated claims. I remember the lengthy and heated usenet arguments. It amazes me that no one else seems to.

"Let's give sanctions more time!"

Oh, that sounds like a *great* idea.

>>Somehow I have a clear memory of those repeated claims. I remember the lengthy and heated usenet arguments. It amazes me that no one else seems to.

Of course they don't remember it. It no longer serves their agenda.

You've got to realize, you are dealing with people, who knowingly or unknowingly, have incorporated bolshevism into their very souls.

There is no objective truth for them, only what serves their view.

We do not live in the same reality as the the filthy leftists.

They have no politics, only personal problems projected onto events.

Our devil's advocate asks why we did not just let Saddam take Saudi Arabia. ...a fair question, and the answer is that we could not afford to let this dangerous nutbag continue to develop weapons of mass destruction toward the goal of utter hegemony over the oil of the region.

Fair answer. However, I would contend that Saddam was evil but probably not a nutbag, at least compared to say, the Persian nutbag next door who is working on building a nuke so he can bring back the 12th Iman.

Erm - it gets worse. It was the Holy Father of the Beloved Leader who (when the Shi'ites in the south of Iraq revolted against Saddam right after Gulf War I), said "nah, let's not help them Shi'ites out, they might join Japan" before he puked his sushi over the Japanese Prime Minister's lap.
Of course, the Holy Father of the Beloved Leader had earlier voted in favour of the Shi'ite insurrection, but then decided to vote against it.
And now, the Beloved Leader, son of the Holy Father, chose to invade the WRONG COUNTRY! Because while the Beloved Leader sent the Dark Puppy to the United Nations with a nail and a piece of wood as evidence of the Iraqi WMD programme, engineers in Iran and Pakistani scientists in North Korea were waiving at the sky to make sure that those US Keyhole 14 spy satellites properly photographed the setting-up of the uranium spinners and rocket fuel depots.
And heeeeeeey, guess where we're at now!

Bill Fish:

I agree with your arguement RE: Hussein's nutbaggery. I don't think Hosein was insane so much as we was very dangerously ambitious. He was prone to very serious miscalculation in the service of his ambition. The man with nukes would have been an unacceptable risk. The same can obviously said on Ahmedinijad (or however that is spelled) expect the latter is quite obviously bugsh*t insane.

doug

So, are you arguing that we should have kicked off the war against Saddam 10 years earlier?

And nuked Iran, North Korea and Pakistan?

Ok, sounds good, but man you really are a hawk....

TO: Evan
RE: All Too True

"You've got to realize, you are dealing with people, who knowingly or unknowingly, have incorporated bolshevism into their very souls.

There is no objective truth for them, only what serves their view." -- Evan

As the saying goes....

"Yesterday's truth is tomorrow's lie."

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Evil has many tools, but a lie is the handle that will fit them all.]

TO: All
RE: Here There Be Trolls

"It was the Holy Father of the Beloved Leader who (when the Shi'ites in the south of Iraq revolted against Saddam right after Gulf War I), said "nah, let's not help them Shi'ites out, they might join Japan" before he puked his sushi over the Japanese Prime Minister's lap." -- Rilly Ronka

How old are you Rilly boy?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

I have no problem with the cease fire and decision of GB1. It is what he agreed upon with the allies in forming the coalition. The highest principle of leadership is to say what you are going to do, do what you say.

However, 2 to 4 years after the cease fire, that committment was non operative because Saddam was not fullfilling his responsibilities: no reparations to Kuwait, no accounting for an American pilot, hostile action against US aircraft patrolling in no fly zones, no transparency in accounting for WMD, obfuscation of UN inspection teams (to the point of kickiing them out of the counrtry, genocidal agreesion against his population, an assassination attemp against a US president, etc, etc. The point is the conditions of cessation of hostilities were not being met, we were de facto back at war. The problem is POTUS showed exactly zero acceptance of reality and responsibility for leadership.

Consider, BC became Pres in Jan 93, his presidency ended in Jan 2001. Look what happened.

Iraq: The US and its allies had their boot on Saddam's throat in 93, in 2001 Saddam was back in charge

North Korea: In 93 no nukes, in 2001, a nuke power.

Iran: In 93 no significant nuke program, in 2001 well down the road courtesy of a Pakastani physicist. (also dealing with Lybia)

Al Qaeda: TWA bomb plots, first WTC, Khobar towers, African Embassies, USS Cole, etc. 1993 to 2001, no effective action (over 8 years) against the leader of Al Qaeda. S. Berger, NSA, nixed 4 shots, 1 literal and in real time evidently.

An absolute catastrophic failure of initiative and leadership. What the hell was the President of the United States doing on National Security for 8 years?

The picture I come up with is, he was sitting in a chair in the oval office at night in good ole boy telephone conversation with a US Senator while a 20 year old intern is polishing his knob.
but there is another screen side by side with another picture. Its bin Laden convening a war council meeting in Afghanistan and opening with problem number one: 'Gentlement', the truck bomb was not successful. Does anyone have a better technical plan for this target?

Its breathtaking.

Re: "On to Baghdad" in GWI.

Remember, after the war UN inspectors destroyed tons and tons of chemical weapons. Years later they found the bio weapons program. If we had pushed on to Baghdad in 1991, those weapons would have been used against us. Our troops should have been protected by their gear but there were no guarrantees. Even if our troops survived, hundreds of thousands of civilians would have died horribly.

It's odd to see some people argue that we should have gone after Saddam while he had those weapons locked and loaded but somehow it was a blunder to remove him while those weapons programs were temporarily stood down.

Nonsense, the United States never should have gotten involved in the Middle East to begin with. Whatever the locals think of their own leaders, they hate Americans worse as the Iraq War (2003-present) has shown.

JoMama,
Huh? "Should have never gotten involved in the Middle East"?
Ever hear of this stuff called oil? Oh yeah, and although the sand can be warm and dry, it tends to clog one's sinuses. Yes, the world is a scary place, but we didn't get to be No. 1 by hiding from it.

Second,"the Locals" however you define them, are not one people with one viewpoint. Sure, a lot of them are hotheads and easily swayed by demonstrations of thuggery, but you obviously need to spend a bit more time reading about the Mid-East if you think we're engaged with a monolithic group.

Check out Totten's website, or Bay's. Christ, read any blog based in the Mid-East.

Man, don't foist your lazy ignorance on us. We ain't getting paid for it.

Deflecting agression and violence to some outward source is a good tactic. Hating America works for them. Why hold your own leaders accountable when you can blame someone else for your crappy life?

It would be nice not to be invovled in the middle east, everyone just going on about their own business. It's not going to work that way anymore. We're too connected and interdependant.

Incidentally, I think that the middle east, maybe only slightly less than the pacific rim, is going to be predominant in the future. It's a gut feeling related to stagnation vs. chaos. Teenagers... those natural troublemakers and revolutionaries, *do* things.

The more I read here, the more I become invested in my original assertion. Let me frame it another way for you:

The world is filled with people who will always hate us. No matter what we do, they will never like us. Therefore, we all (us and them) would be safer in a world where those who would do us harm are so paralyzed with fear of us that they dare not act.

This means that we drop bombs, we launch missiles, we send in SEAL teams -- or divisions of mechanized infanty -- at the slightest provocation. Proportional response should be our trademark, the proportion being an order of magnitude greater than the offense.

In short, we make it clear that fucking with us equals instant and certain suicide.

In this world, restraint is tantamount to appeasement. I've had a bellyfull of it. Merely claiming to be a hyperpower isn't getting it done.

TO: Dave
RE: Like Teddy Said

"The world is filled with people who will always hate us. No matter what we do, they will never like us." -- Dave

Roosevelt, that is....

The world will never love us. They will respect us. Some of them may even fear us. But they will never love us."

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: Dave
RE: However....

"This means that we drop bombs, we launch missiles, we send in SEAL teams -- or divisions of mechanized infanty -- at the slightest provocation. Proportional response should be our trademark, the proportion being an order of magnitude greater than the offense.

...

In this world, restraint is tantamount to appeasement." -- Dave

I don't agree with the idea that we send in the infantry at the 'slightest provocation'.

Proportional response seems to me to indicate that if we need to conquor, THEN is when we send in the grunts.

"I've had a bellyfull of it. Merely claiming to be a hyperpower isn't getting it done." -- Dave

I can understand this sentiment, however, I think we need to exercise such restraint that NOBODY can get US so PO'd that we do not think rationally on how to deal with them.

"In short, we make it clear that fucking with us equals instant and certain suicide." -- Dave

I would suggest that it depends on how we qualify and quantify 'f---ing with us'.

Are we going to go out beheading people because of a cartoon in some paper?

I should hope not.

On the other hand, killing any of US should amount to a suicide wish on the part of the perp. And if it is a government....

....send in the grunts.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

I agree with everything but the corruption by association. We fought with the Communists against the Nazis and that proper alliance didn't corrupt the rightness of our cause in Europe--to destroy Naziism forever and roll back German troops to Germany. But how can I disagree with a man with such a cute little boy?

The practical moral is simple. If you're going to make war, make war until you're standing in the other guy's capital and the surviving officials are lining up to sign the surrender document.