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Panama -> RE: Osama bin Laden is DEAD! (5/14/2011 1:07:55 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: rich12545
I disagree about being in Afghanistan. But we should have gone in, completed the mission, and gotten out. Afghanistan is now America's longest war with no end in sight except defeat. The US was attacked from what was essentially an Afghan base. Clearing that out to prevent future attacks represented a national interest.
As for defining it, I can give only a vague idea. Something that gives a benefit of some sort to this country. Yugoslavia gave no benefit. Iraq gave no benefit. Vietnam gave no benefit. Afghanistan would have if it was done right.
1) If the U.S. had gone into Afghanistan, kicked out the Taliban and OBL and then left, exactly what would have been accomplished? A power vacuum. It wouldn't have been long and the Taliban and OBL would have been back. That is not a stretch of the imagination, it's the most possible outcome.
2) The feel for the need to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein evolved in a funny kind of way. Well, maybe not so much funny as tragic.
After ass kicking #1 Hussein felt somewhat naked. He feared the Iranians more than the West. Because his army had been fairly stripped of strength he felt his best weapon was misinformation. He had to make it seem to the Iranians that even though his army had been crippled he still had the means to defend his country from Iranian intervention. At the same time he wanted the West to know that this was, indeed, a campaign of misinformation. So what did he do?
Saddam made it seem as though he had large stockpiles of WMD. Not publicly but covertly. It was done in such as way that the U.S. CIA agents in Iraq would see that this was just a ruse and there was nothing to it. However, the CIA had not infiltrated any of agencies Saddam had assumed they had. There was no way for the U.S. to think anything other than Iraq had large numbers of WMD and Saddam was doing his best to keep the UN and everyone else from finding them.
A very successful ruse on Saddam's part.
3) The Libyan fiasco somewhat follows both of the above. A whacko leader who has a leaning towards radicalism and terrorism who willingly supports terrorists and their training on his soil. Also the leader of a nation that truely does have WMD. If he were simply removed by a civil uprising who would fill the vacuum? The West would rather have some handle on the situation to prevent crazy things from happening. Their intervention is regretable but understandable.
Sorry, forgot Syria.
4) Have you ever played the game where blocks are stacked up and pull them out one at a time. It gets to the point where the wrong one will send the whole stack crumbling. That block is called Syria. Telumar is correct. You don't have to be in foreign service to understand. A simple map will show you how strategically important Syria is. A despot can maintain stability like no other leader and stability is vital. Nothing will ever be done as long as that stability is maintained. If it looks like things are going to hell there then, out of desperation, others will act just as was done in the UN Security Council with Libya. Do you think the abstaining nations refused a no vote by accident?
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