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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (791556)	6/24/2014 1:33:29 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578927

>> I appreciate your wisdom. I don't claim that; but you and I can have respectful conversations about it and still disagree. That is a rare commodity on this thread. As is often pointed out around here, I've been wrong about all of it. But I always believed GHWB did the right thing to not exceed the limits of what he'd agreed to with the UN (although I'd just as soon the UN didn't exist, if you're going to make deals with them you need to abide by them). But when Saddam failed to abide by the terms of the deal he struck there had to be a price; otherwise, he was going to become more belligerent over time. >> I just think there were too many variables in Iraq that weren't considered. I think it was too unpredictable from the getgo. I don't know if they weren't considered or there were too many mistakes or what. I'm sure it is a combination. The most important aspect of the insurgency, IMO, was when they figured out how much damage (physical & psychological) they could do with IEDs. And they got really good at it, morphed the concept into EFPs, and really became experts. I've got pictures my son took of EFPs they found that were indistinguishable from chunks of concrete and rocks on the side of the road or other landscape features you'd never think of. The only defense against it was development of some pretty high tech tools as well as just brute force methods. 3,000 of the Iraq War deaths were caused by them, and tens of thousands of serious nonfatal casualties. He was there around '07 and the RG-31 he drove could take a direct hit and still be survivable most of the time. That was technology that didn't exist in 03. So, the insurgency got better at it then the US had to get better still. While the insurgency was predictable, and even IEDs had been used by the VC in the 60s, the big difference was that in Iraq that had access to TONS of munitions and technology like RF detonators. It was something we just weren't prepared for. >> Did they seriously consider what would happen when Saddam was gone? I think they believed they would be seen as liberators. THAT was a huge mistake.