Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (35289)	5/1/2009 4:33:18 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

I don't think the Christians and Sunnis feel that "freed" right now. The security situation has improved tremendously, but while its great compared to what it was a year or three ago, it isn't great by general standards that would be applied to any country. When their is still violence people are naturally focused on it. That doesn't mean they are not more free than they used to be, every major group in Iraq is more free now, just that they (reasonably) still aren't happy about the overall situation. As for cost in lives, well I suppose its major by modern standards but its very low by historical standards, and not even distant history, compare to say Vietnam. Money wise the cost was large compared to other wars in terms of nominal dollars, and large compared to most of them even in real dollars, but not so large as a portion of the economy. As for security, that's harder to tell. It could be argued that we have a net benefit not a cost, but benefit and cost will only be known in the long run, and perhaps not even then, since you can never know exactly what would have happened if very different decisions had been made.