Was This War Necessary?

The Wall Street Journal | 3/24/3 | By ROBERT L. BARTLEY

[SunStar]

This article correctly demonstrates that we should no longer elect appeasement-oriented leaders. God speed, President Bush.

[WaveThatFlag]

Give Bush41 a little credit. Removing a head of state was unthinkable in 1991.

[WhiskeyPapa]

This is what I've been saying all along. It's never been hidden from view. A -lot- of our current problems go right back to George Bush, Sr.

Walt

[Experiment 6-2-6]

Withdrawal of American power creates a vacuum into which forces of instability flow.

Aristotle once said, "Evil prevails when good men do nothing". And in 1992, when the LAPD withdrew from the ghettos after the Rodney King verdict, it allowed thugs and gangsters to loot and murder.

Hopefully this exercise will be finished without undue casualties and obtain the desired result..

[IncPen]

Clinton-era ping

[txzman]

Bingo. Elect men who understand the reality of politics in today's world, who are dedicated to upholding the constitution, defending the interests of the United States and protecting its people.

[WaveThatFlag]

Um, the Journal has just about the most conservative editorial staff in all of journalism. When was the last time you actually read it?

[Search4Truth]

(Yawn)

[Mr. Bird]

In my opinion, the world has changed much too dramatically over the past 15-20 years to criticize wholly the manner in which the U.S. has treated Iraq. The American people could wrap their brains around ousting an invader of a sovereign nation in '91. Assuming they would support regime change at that time is no small wager.

Once again, we find otherwise intelligent people marveling at how simple the world could be if only we could have seen history coming.

[WaveThatFlag]

OK, then I don't understand your point. Do you think the Journal is too conservative? You can't think they are too liberal. This is the editorial staff who recruited the Coalition of The Willing two months ago.

[JohnGalt]

I think it goes to the end of the Cold War and the failure of the CIA to extinguish certain assets like Saddam and Osama amongst dozens of others.

[onedoug]

Good analogy.

I'm sorry you feel your time in the Navy was "wasted". Thank you for that service.

[Ditto]

But U.S. aircraft controlling the skies let the Iraqis fly combat helicopters to suppress the revolts.

Not true Walt. Storm'n Norman got snookered at first and agreed to allow chopper flights since all the roads and bridges between Baghdad and the south were out. But he also ordered them shot down after they started blasting the hell out of the Marsh Arabs.

There is a lot of myth surrounding the events post Gulf I, and this is but one of them. The fact is that we did not know at the time if any of the competing anti-Saddam factions would have been a better deal than leaving a weakened Saddam left in power. What would a Kurd leadership have done to the Sunni population? Would Turkey be forced to act to control their own Kurds? Would a Shiite dominated Iraq have merged with the crazy Mullahs in Tehran? We still don't know the answer to those questions. What we did know at the time was that there was no way we could stay there for very long to help sort things out. What we do know today is that we will be there for a long time.

[WhiskeyPapa]

You are correct, as usual. The war could have been avoided altogether.

We DID leave the insurgents hanging. That will hurt us now.

Walt

[Ditto]

We DID leave the insurgents hanging. That will hurt us now.

You are correct as well. It has happened before. I think of those frantic pleas from Budapest in 1956. But it was not in our best interest, or even within our ability, to do anything about either situation.

[4CJ]

A -lot- of our current problems go right back to George Bush, Sr.

Nonsense - the problems were there long before. A lot of problems can be traced to conquests at varous times and nations, especially by England in her colonial heyday. Many conquered nations consider us - the US of A - to be equivalent targets, and responsible for the "sins" of the British.

Bush the Elder should have contained (you know what I mean) Saddam, just as Clinton should have done. By failing to act, Clinton just passed the buck on to W. Just as if W had failed to act, the responsibilty would fall to his sucessor.

Personally, I think George Washington was correct, that we should avoid entangling alliances.