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[quote=Sheriff Gonna Getcha;287382]And Kosovo.[/quote]

wasn't a rebuilding. it was a UN/NATO provisional government. not quite the same.

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[quote=Sheriff Gonna Getcha;287500]300,000 of his own civilians were killed during his reign and another 1M Iraqis and Iranians were killed when Saddam made a land grab during the Iran-Iraq War. It's pretty hard to beat those numbers.[/quote]

1million hutus dead in ethnic genocide in riwanda while the world sat and watched and did nothing (with 2.5mill refugees). 400,000 in darfur. it's really not hard to beat those numbers. aids has killed more in africa (2million deaths alone in 2005).

the iran iraq war results in about 375k casualties on the iraq side and 500k on the iranian side.

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[QUOTE=That Guy;287503]1million hutus dead in ethnic genocide in riwanda while the world sat and watched and did nothing (with 2.5mill refugees). 400,000 in darfur. it's really not hard to beat those numbers. aids has killed more in africa (2million deaths alone in 2005).

the iran iraq war results in about 375k casualties on the iraq side and 500k on the iranian side.[/QUOTE]

No doubt the other conflicts in Rwanda and Darfur were or are bad. My only point was that it seems somewhat illogical to call for intervention in Rwanda, Somalia, or the Sudan based on a humanitarian crises and not think that Saddam's regime was worthy of ouster (considering between the Iran-Iraq war and killing his own people, some 1.1-1.3M died).

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[QUOTE=That Guy;287502]wasn't a rebuilding. it was a UN/NATO provisional government. not quite the same.[/QUOTE]

You're right, it wasn't a rebuilding, it was [I]building [/I]a relatively autonomous government in Kosovo where none previously existed.

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[quote=Sheriff Gonna Getcha;287512]You're right, it wasn't a rebuilding, it was [I]building [/I]a relatively autonomous government in Kosovo where none previously existed.[/quote]

right, but japan, phillipines, and iraq involve new self governance AND infrastructe (water, power, road work, economy, etc).

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i honestly think rummy has a lot of blame in this. by thinking he was smarter than everyone else (and while you could be smarter than a person individually, 1 vs 2000, the 1 person can't process the same amount of info or know enough about all the specifics needed to disregard everything they have to say).

it's not like its a big surprise that you have to win over the population by providing CONSTANT safety and talking to the locals... the pre-war planning had little contingency planning and doesn't seem like it was very well thought out ("of course they'll greet us as liberators", "of course we should destroy all the operational knowledge and trained military overnight", the limited thought behind who exactly was supposed to lead the new government once it was up and running, etc). which is what really makes me mad.

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it almost seemed like rumsfield had a plan, and no matter what, he was sticking to it. I'm sure one of the big strategies is to adapt to your enemies tactics

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[quote=Sheriff Gonna Getcha;287511]No doubt the other conflicts in Rwanda and Darfur were or are bad. My only point was that it seems somewhat illogical to call for intervention in Rwanda, Somalia, or the Sudan based on a humanitarian crises and not think that Saddam's regime was worthy of ouster (considering between the Iran-Iraq war and killing his own people, some 1.1-1.3M died).[/quote]


there's no doubt he's a bad guy, but there are lots of bad guys out there, and its convenient that we go after this one and do NOTHING about the others.

i mean, mugabe's still running around killing anyone that tries to oppose him. it's just that sub-saharan africa has some places that are in a real bad way too.

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The planning was undoubtedly horrible and Bush will likely be judged accordingly. However, as pointed out, all that is water under the bridge. The issue of how to handle Iraq in the future is a distinct question.

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the other thing is all our intelligence was geared towards russia, and we're still trying to get enough arabic speakers and cultural knowledge on the ground level to get the info that's needed to run full loads of intelligence ops.

i mean, if you speak arabic or go to an air force recruiter and say you want to be a linguist, they won't turn you down. It's a massive ramp up and there's still some institutional learning that's going on about the "new" enemy. that should help going forward, if nothing else.

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well, i think the right move is to commit the proper number of troops to do what needs to be done, and we really didn't have enough on the ground compared to the deployment needs. More people is good. if the locals feel safe, they'll feel better about going on with their lives and try harder to restore iraq since they'll be less worried about, you know, not dying.

but while more troops on the ground is good, you CANNOT institute a draft. while it's nice economically, the effect on morale, combat efficiency, and conduct is terrible. Soldiers that don't want to be there aren't as likely to play nice with the locals, are more likely to do drugs, etc etc. not to mention popular support goes to zero REALLY, REALLY fast.

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[QUOTE=That Guy;287523]there's no doubt he's a bad guy, but there are lots of bad guys out there, and its convenient that we go after this one and do NOTHING about the others.[/QUOTE]

Hate to differ again, but I do not think that we do "nothing" about the other "bad guys." In the past decade or so we've gone into the Balkans (twice), Somalia, Haiti, and now Iraq.

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Plus Monterey, CA is a pretty cool place to go to linguist school.

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I have an idea, from now on, why don't we leave it to the oppressed people of the world to overthrow their own dictators?

There's not ONE American soldier, airman, marine, or sailor that is worth dying to protect the schlums who won't stand up to protect themselves.

Everybody gets the government/dictator they deserve.

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[quote=Beemnseven;287555]I have an idea, from now on, why don't we leave it to the oppressed people of the world to overthrow their own dictators?

There's not ONE American soldier, airman, marine, or sailor that is worth dying to protect the schlums who won't stand up to protect themselves.

Everybody gets the government/dictator they deserve.[/quote]
I think we'd be the united states of germany in the 1940's with this kind of thinking.

I think the point your trying to get at is that we shouldn't be the world police anymore. That's too much of a burden, takes too many resources, and quite frankly isn't working.

I was just having a couple of drinks with my good friend who just got back from a year long tour in the worst part of Iraq, and believe me, he feels the same. He see's alot of hope for the people, but is really fed up with alot of the political reasons given for the start of the war now.

He was telling me that he thinks we need to finish this war, hand the nation of Iraq a feasable nation back, and then stay out of the middle east.

It's really a mess out there and wasn't worth it. At this point though, we need to set up Iraq's economy and then leave, thats the most important thing.