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These people are either confused themselves, or confused about the fact that the West knows them for exactly who they are.

But if the West does know them for what they are, then why is there this weird policy of regime change, in places like Libya and Syria, where it is handing power to the head-choppers? It is inexplicable.

In Iraq too - dare one say it - was Sadaam Hussein any worse than what has come after him? Was he wrong to be a "tyrant"? Most of those killed in his various crack downs were Islamic extremists of one sort or another. We put in a no fly zone, so that he could not bomb militias in northern Iraq. Now that he is gone, we ourselves have to go to all the trouble of bombing militias in northern Iraq.

There must be some plan to all this, but I cannot see it.

These people are either confused themselves, or confused about the fact that the West knows them for exactly who they are.

But if the West does know them for what they are, then why is there this weird policy of regime change, in places like Libya and Syria, where it is handing power to the head-choppers? It is inexplicable.

You and I have the same view as it relates to Libya and Syria. In fact, I'd go farther and state it was incredibly short sighted to change the regimes in Libya and Syria. We had known people, who had modified their atctions in recent decades.

McCain and Obama were clueless to this dynamic.

In Iraq too - dare one say it - was Sadaam Hussein any worse than what has come after him? Was he wrong to be a "tyrant"? Most of those killed in his various crack downs were Islamic extremists of one sort or another.

Here I am going to have to disagree. Hussien's sons would target the husbands of women they wanted to play around with. These were crusty guys beyond the norm. Hussien was a paranoid. He would kill people just to prevent problems, that weren't there.

Look, is there value in taking out the leadership of a man who has sworn his hatred of the U.S., and his intent to do anything he could to take it down? I think there is. It sends a message ot other problem players in the region. When Hussein was brought down, Khadaffy voluntarily surrendered his nuclear weapons research. That's not a bad residual out come IMO. It proves the point I'm trying to make.

We put in a no fly zone, so that he could not bomb militias in northern Iraq. Now that he is gone, we ourselves have to go to all the trouble of bombing militias in northern Iraq.

Yes, but in all honestly those militias were not causing problems before ISIS. Now they are. Remember, we were trying to prevent attacks on the Kurds. And in reality, the Kurds are still acting in conjunction with us.

There must be some plan to all this, but I cannot see it.

Well, I admit it is murkey at times. I still belive there is a plan and it has been reasoned for the most part. Is it perfect? No. Look Bush was right about one thing. This isn't going away soon. We will have to be diligent for a long time. That's life, when it comes to the Middle-East.

In the old days, we would have had the whole region at our throats if we ventured into the region. Today, many nations welcome our intervention. That is progress. It isn't perfection.

In Iraq too - dare one say it - was Sadaam Hussein any worse than what has come after him?

Depends on who you are. From the standpoint of the average Iraqi Shiite or Kurd, Saddam was worse. The average Sunni did better under Saddam. From the average American's standpoint, we are better off with Saddam gone. Iraq won't be threatening the gulf states any time soon, and it won't be getting nukes. What Bush did wrong was stay in Iraq. We should have gone with the Afghan/Libyan model. Plink government forces until the opposition wins. Instead, we used the Iraq model in Afghanistan, and have now lost 8K men in both theaters.