"I agree that it will be a long, hard road. Nobody has ever said anything different."
>>> Actually, many of the 'neo-cons' ("new Cons"... 'ya gotta love that truth in advertising) did: there was a lot of loose talk before the war about how the Iraqi oil revenue would pay for everything,.
"Wars suck..."
>>> No doubt.
"but the alternative is worse."
>>> You mean peace?
>>> IMO, it all comes down to risk/reward... and Opportunity Cost - the cost of forgone opportunities.
>>> Figure... what? 1/2 Trillion dollars, or $600 Billion or so cost to the American taxpayers before we can extricate ourselves? (Not counting, of course, all the INTEREST COSTS that will add up on that debt - since the war was paid for with borrowed money - over the next 30 years or so... maybe cracking the $1 Trillion mark in the end.)
>>> What ELSE could 1/2 to 1 Trillion dollars have bought us? Total US energy independence? A paid-up healthcare system? A balanced budget? A reformed, next generation defense force? A funded privatization of the Social Security system?
>>> Some things are just better VALUES.
>>> That old dictator Saddam was in his seventies... and apparently mostly WMD-less in a dangerous neighborhood. By all rights, we should have gotten rid of him during Desert Storm - but Bush I either didn't have the guts... or strategic vision... or, if we take him at his word, he feared the CONSEQUENCES.
>>> But that was then, this is now... what is our best allocation of resources? |
