I fully expect to take some flack from strangers and friends regarding this article. But sometimes a person just needs to say what's on their mind.
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Looking at the above information, have recent wars and conflicts have been worth the cost in dollars, in death, in reputation?
- Of course WWII was a gimme - we had to get involved. In fact, we probably should have gotten involved much sooner.
- But what did we get out of Korea, other than a hopeful claim by some that we helped slow the spread of communism?
- Do we even need to talk about Vietnam?
- The first Gulf War was a hands down success. Remember, this was a UN-sanctioned action with a very well-defined objective. We ran Iraq out of Kuwait in no time at all!
- The War in Iraq - $784 billion dollars, 4500 dead. And nothing to show for it but a damaged reputation and depleted coffers. And we broke our own taboo and invaded this country based on bad intelligence, or selectively interpreted intelligence - take your pick. Who are we again? And although the war is over, we still have troops in Iraq and we're burning money every day to be there.
- The War in Afghanistan began over 10 years ago and we're still there, but don't have a barrel of oil to show for it. We did finally capture and kill Bin Laden, but did we have to wage war on an entire country? Oh, and Bin Laden was in Pakistan when we finally caught up with him.
I do not believe that we failed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan due to any fault of our military - our men and women in uniform are ready, willing, and very able. But our leadership does a lousy job picking our fights, defining our objectives, rallying our allies, and knowing when to pull out. We need to take a break from waging war and invest more resources in taking care of things at home.
What to you think?
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