“I really don’t care if al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war. We chose the battleground. I would rather fight them in Iraq than NY. They lost. If they were stupid enough to send their jihadists from other countries to die in Iraq, then our plan worked perfectly.”
I think it was Vice President Cheney who spoke of “draining the swamp.” I think that is what we have been doing.
I’m not going to say that the execution of this war was perfect. But if one knows the tiniest smidgen about military history, one knows that a “perfect war” is an absurdly high standard. As wars go, this one has been tremendously effective.
The American military, from the soldier, to the tactics, to the equipment, to the leadership, is the best it has ever been. We are winning this war, yet defense expenditures as a percentage of GDP is very low. Pilots are younger than the helicopters they fly. It’s past time for some new equipment.
Good points. It seems as though almost (almost) no-one has any sensible perspective on this. The average U.S. citizen who is not “connected” to the military has hardly felt the “load” of this war - a far different situation than, say, WWII.