Hi John Cavanaugh; Re: "... when did diplomacy ever work on tyrants without a club held in reserve?"
Never, but what does that have to do with Iraq and the US?
Here's the figures, according to the CIA:
Area Population GDP Mil.Budg
Iraq: 437,072 23,331,985 $ 57B $NA
US: 9,629,091 278,058,881 $9,963B $277B
In other words, the US is 22x bigger, 12x as populous, 174x as wealthy, and has a military budget that is nearly 5x as large as the entire Iraqi economy.
In a fight, put your money on the big dog.
Let's compare the sizes of those economies again, as it is economic power, rather than land area, or population that historically provide the most accurate prediction of the winners in wars (with a lot of other variables thrown in, particularly the meaning of the word "winner"). Each "*" is $57 billion dollars:
Iraq:
*
United States:
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Do you really mean to imply that Saddam is an opponent who scares the United States? He don't scare me.
-- Carl
P.S. Figures:
cia.gov
cia.gov |
