John,
How many of our troops went to Yugoslavia vs. Iraq?
You are judging it after the outcome is known. The bombings inside Kosovo were completely ineffective (destruction of civilian infrastucture inside Yugoslavia was). To dislodge those troops out hilly Kosovo would require a lot of ground troops, but it didn't come to that because Milosovic threw in the towel after Clinton attacks on civilian infrastructure. How could it have been known ahead of time that that was going to happen? How was it known ahead of time, in JFK years, that it would take half a million US soldiers in Vietnam, and even that would fall short?
How many other countries participated in a meaningful way?
About as many and as meaningfully as in Iraq. And, BTW, there was exactly zero probability that the UN would ever agree to Kosovo war, which is why Clinton went around UN (which is what Bush should have done).
Do you think that could have a significant impact on the number of US soldiers that were killed and maimed? Could we estimate that up front? Is your argument stupid?
I agree, this is your argument though. Can we estimate ahead of time how the enemy will react? We can, but often the reality is very far from the estimate. On positive side or on negative side.
Reality was far from a reasonable estimate on the positive side in Kosovo (as far as losses), probably on the negative side of reasonable estimate in Iraq. And we remember, we left Milosovic in power, and Kosovo ended up being ethnically cleansed, just the other way, to the delight of al-Qaeda.
Joe |
