That is a nice post. I too wondered why we were going into Iraq. At the time I thought a more logical progression would have been Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. I thought the threat did require proactive solutions. Of course, this does not brand me as some right wing nut. Looking back I understand why we selected Iraq next, we had friendly regimes in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Iraq was part of the "Axis of Evil" ruled by an evil man. Just because 9/11 involved Egyptians, Saudis and Al Qaeda was in Pakistan and funded by Arabia does not justify attack on those nations.
You are right, "What if's" are not going to do much now. "What if USA had supported Russia against Afghanistan and Bin Laden was killed?" "What if Gore didn't sigh so much?" Who cares?
However, I think you left out a couple words there, specifically the words "Many people believe that" on the sentence starting "This action compounded". This is where the Vietnam experience comes in. How about Dan Rather lied to divide the country, to limit our resources to respond to other threats, to compound our difficulties with other countries? Did he lie about whether Iraq is any better off? Did he lie about the relative casualty count vs other conflicts? Did he lie about the status of who is winning the war? Didn't Murphy say "We can not win this war." or was that JFK or TDK? Is that a lie? I do agree that our soldiers would be safer in Okinawa, although it has been pointed out that J. Carter suffered more casualties (traffic accidents I suppose in Georgia etc) than GWB did in Iraq, so maybe redeploying to Okinawa would actually be a really bad idea. GWB seems to have a very good head on his shoulders and does not have the Vietnam trauma, thank god that war ended before he finished his NG training, he coulda been scarred for life like Murphy and Kerry. |
