Firstly, I agree with a lot of things you’ve said in this thread. Also want to note the following, as provocative as they are:
>>>”The example I always give is that France helped us win the revolution, but the French King didn’t do it out of some love for democracy.”
Yep, France, at the time, was NOT a ‘democracy’.
You’re right. You can’t expect ‘democracy’ from those who don’t have it, themselves. The French, back then, beheaded their King and Queen. True, I guess, it doesn’t make them ‘bad people’.
>>>”The mistake we made in Iraq was sticking around. The day after Saddam took a long drop on a short rope we should have declared victory and thrown a ticker-tape parade in New York for our returning troops.”
The ‘mistake’ we made and seemingly continue to make is to stick around in the ME for decades, for one reason or another.
How was it that Saddam stayed around for years in Iraq before someone decided his & his regime’s time were finally up in 2003?
Where is OBL, today, BTW? Did we catch him?
Agreed. Re-building of communities, cities, towns, societies, their essential infrastructure & their political processes should be left to those who own them, after we beat the crap out of them. But then, one should not interfere in those places & matters, in the first place, nor at any other time & in any way, directly or indirectly, as an ‘outsider’, one can argue!
>>>”If we are forced to fight them we take out the mullahs, blow up as much of the weapons production facilities as we can find and GTFO as fast as we can.”
“forced to fight them”?! What Exactly does that mean? Do we have to be FORCED to do something?
>>>”Persians tend to hold their society as being superior to everyone else,”
As far as I know, “Persians” do not hold “their society as being superior to everyone else” any more than many other societies perceive themselves to be superior to others. But then, superiority has many different facades.
