On Sep 10, 2010, at 5:35 PM, SA wrote:
> On Iraq, the balance sheet for the US is ambiguous at best. For Saddam Hussein, though, it was a total loss, and that counts for something. In Iraq and Afghanistan combined we've lost 600 soldiers a year over nine years. In Korea we lost 12,000 a year over 3 years. Vietnam was much more of a clear loss for the US than Iraq was - and yet even there the damage was very temporary.
>
> If you think about the threats and challenges US policymakers faced in, say, 1961, it makes 2010 look like a light comedy. Then they worried that Washington might be incinerated, Communism might sweep Latin America, an emergency might force a national mobilization complete with price controls and millions of working-age men drafted. What are they worried about now? Hugo Chavez making rude gestures? China signing a soybean agreement with Cameroon? Some vague notion of not being "in control"?
Spending $5 trillion on pointless, inconclusive wars, much of it borrowed from the Chinese?
Doug