[cva66snipe]

Look war is a punishment to be inflicted upon a nation. Up[on a nation means the nation. The military and the people who allowed the ones to come to power who caused the problems. It means innocents die as well. It means entire nations can perish if that is what it takes. However I see it as an act of last resort but once declared it must be an absolute act until the will of the enemy people and military is such they no longer fight. That is not what is going on in Iraq. That is not what happened in Nam. That is not what happened in Korea. That is what happened however in every U.S. war up to that point and hey we one too. People who think war can be kind and gentle have no business being involved in calling for it.

[John Farson]

I hope Iraq does not become our own national West Bank. The Israeli conflict has persisted for the same reasons you mention.

[vbmoneyspender]

And here is how Paul led off his statement opposing the Congressional Authorization. The very first reason he gave was that he didn't consider it a big deal that they were firing on our pilots on a routine basis. Apparently with Paul, we have to wait for our homeland to be attacked before we can legitimately go to war.

But I have come to the conclusion that I see no threat to our national security. There is no convincing evidence that Iraq is capable of threatening the security of this country, and, therefore, very little reason, if any, to pursue a war.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

...That is not what is going on in Iraq. That is not what happened in Nam. That is not what happened in Korea.

Sorry snipe, got to slightly disagree with you on this one.

It's probably best to leave the Korean war out of this discussion, even though it's true that the war ended with non-resolution.

Fact is that MacAuthur had the North Korean Government on it's knees by mid November 1950 after the Inchon Landing. It's also a fact that if not for Chinese intervention, the war would have been over by Christmas 1950 with a single nation on the Korean Penninsula.

However, it is ALSO true that when Ridgeway took over UN forces that the Chinese took massive casualties.

In the 18 months of the heaviest fighting, the PLA took over 1,000,000 KIA. That's One MILLION troops killed in action in EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

Ridgeway had them channeled into 'killing zones', and puts lots of hot, high velocity steel on them.

Korea was unresolved not because of the tactical situation, or an on-going insurgency, rather because of the political situation (one radically different from the political situation in Iraq). Truman was worried about the non-existent (at that time) Soviet nuclear threat.