Wayne, Harry Truman pressured the Soviets into giving up Northern Iran after World War II, sending in troops to enforce the diplomatic pressure. It would have been very dangerous had the Soviets taken Iran. Carter supplied the guerillas in Afghanistan to overthrow the Soviets and even boycotted the Olympics. The British had taught Persians and Afghanis that they had no chance against first world militaries. We taught them that they could beat the superpowers. Yes, we are paying for that now, but, at that time, we couldn't allow the Soviets to take over the world.
BTW, the left does not believe in giving our enemies anything they want. Truman didn't. It is very unlikely Japan wanted the A-Bomb dropped on them. Neither did Kennedy or Carter. Clinton stopped terrorism in the Balkans without losing any personnel in combat. Like Iraq, the ethnic hatred runs deep there, but, unlike Iraq, we didn't have an ignorant idealogue at the helm of our military.
The simple fact is, war is Hell and we need to use it as a last resort, then, to use it intelligently against the right targets. Bush used it as a first resort against an unfriendly but ineffective state, even giving up on pursuing Osama to concentrate on Saddam. Johnson committed half a million men to Vietnam. Have we suffered from South Vietnam eventually going communist? What about Vietnam joining the great Communist monolith? One of the first things they did after getting us off their back was have a war with Red China. Our vision on military conflicts has been blurry in the past 50 years, whether right wing or left wing leaders are in power.
The good news is, Noreiga is free again. <VBG> |
