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[We could just pound their missile facilities to a pulp from afar.]

With what intel? They don’t put up a big sign that says “missiles are located at this arrow” at each missile site. They’re not only dispersed, but dummies are created and emplaced. We definitely blasted a lot of dummy tanks and other heavy equipment in Serbia during the Bosnian crisis.

We make use of allied Arab intel as well as Special Forces operators in pinpointing enemy targets. How do you get either when the entire region is Iranian territory? How do you get landing rights to do repeated sorties, or do they all have to fly off aircraft carriers or Diego Garcia? And what about the missiles you miss? One miss = hundreds of thousands of American dead. All to prevent a few dozen GI’s from getting killed a year? Does the military exist to prevent harm to civilians, or are civilians just a milk cow for the military to have fun playing with new and interesting toys?

We could save the lives of a huge number of cops and firefighters if they were allowed to ignore incident reports, too. But that would kind of defeat the point of having salaried (vs unpaid volunteer) police and fire departments.