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Originally Posted by dalem
Blues-
Excellent post.
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I thank you; I believe it's one I'll look back on with pride in years to come.
Of course, if President Hillary is elected, it may be used as evidence against me. I may have to answer for heresy to her, or pay with my head the price of offending our new Muslim overlords.
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In 1991, I think it was mainly that we were simply unprepared to act so decisively in a geopolitical sense. Militarily we would have smooshed the Iraqis and been sitting in Baghdad no problem, but on a larger scale we weren't ready for altering the structure of the M.E. so drastically, and propping up a new ally (Iraq) against an old enemy (Iran). That is the quagmire I think people were desperate to avoid - a regional one.
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Yeah, I heard the argument, but I never bought into it. Here's the deal: every single time we let the Arabs off the hook in a war, they think they won. We busted Israel's balls about wiping out a trapped Egyptian army in the Sinai, so they let 'em go, and Egypt comes off thinking they foxed the Jooooos.
They've got to know they've been defeated. And when we got all nervous about finishing the job, they took that to mean we're not serious people, and then we proceeded in the next ten years to reinforce that notion. No wonder Saddam didn't think we'd really come for him; we'd flinched from it every time before. We trained him to provoke us.
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When the Sovs collapsed I remember having a conversation with a friend of the family (Navy guy, asst CAG on the Kennedy for a bit I think) about how dissapointed I'd be if America didn't take the moral high ground over the next few years and be more assertive with our foreign policy. Sure the French and Russkies and UN would whine and cry, but they wouldn't really DO anything.
Then I voted for Clinton. Yikes!
-dale
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Nobody's perfect, man.
