quote:

Originally posted by goldenwings:
USAF---

I spent 8 years in that part of the world dealing with these terrorist--you gonna sit there and tell me that letting Saddam and his government stay in power would have helped us deal with the terrorist in the neighborhood?

You actually believe that saddam wasn't a big influnce in that part of the world as far as terrorist are concerned?

Want to tell me what America was thinking at the beginning of Guadalcanel or of the North Africa campaign where we were losing and getting people killed left and right?

But the difference between then and now is that those Americans had a backbone.

quote:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

quote:

Originally posted by USAF_76_2_80:
Thanks, Gary.
My Pop is 84, and served in the USN from '42 to '48. He is one of the toughest old birds you would ever want to meet. But he says "At my age, I don't buy green bananas any more." I won't be able to get down again till after the semester is up in January, so Xmas is gonna be really early this year.
Have a good visit with your dad!
PJ

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The reason support has fallen so sharply is that what is being done has turned out to be the wrong thing, and people can see that it is.