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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (84189)	7/27/2000 2:59:59 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

What does "finishing it" involve? Heck you could nuke people into oblivion and that would "finish it". A better idea is to defend borders religiously, attack military targets and leave civilian populations alone. There is a real danger in creating a mentality of all out war against both army and populace ot "finish it". I think anyone who was familiar with Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, you name it in Vietnam, and other civilian atrocities would have a realistic and rational fear of the horror that can result from "finishing it".

To: nihil who wrote (84189)	7/27/2000 3:07:47 AM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 108807

Routing and punishing a fleeing enemy is what victory is all about. And what do you do with them when they are routed? I don't think either our Arab allies or the American people would have been willing to see an extended American occupation of Iraq. Nobody else was willing to play the role of occupying force. If you go in, eliminate the armed forces, remove Saddam, and get out without some form of occupying force in place, what are you likely to get? Chaos. Probably civil war. Maybe another Saddam wannabe, or a Taleban clone. Maybe the Iranian mullahs deciding to settle old scores by invading. It's also important to note that the decision was not entirely ours to make, and that maintaining good relations with the other Arab states was at least as important as punishing Saddam. Allying with Americans to push Iraq out of Kuwait was something the Saudis, etc. could sell to their own people; supporting a US invasion of Iraq working out of bases in Saudi Arabia might have been another story. We definitely don't want to give any unnecessary ammunition to fundamentalist movements in the conservative Arab states. Whatever we may think of the house of Saud, their interests are ours. The decision that was made seemed reasonable at the time. With the advantage of hindsight it may seem less so, but even with that advantage I'm not convinced that any of the alternatives would have been better.