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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:19:59 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 12:53:08 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


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news On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:20:15 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I don't think we're spending $790B defending against China. It's a
bit
more
complicated than that.

It is still far too much money. We are spending 100 billion dollars
a
year in a country with a GDP of $27 billion trying to kill 40 guys.
How does that make any sense?
Bob likes to complain about Iraq but at least we toppled a dictator
who threatened Israel. I am not sure we have done anything in
Afghanistan but create more terrorists and destabilize Pakistan.

There's no way to equate the two situations. We spent $1+ trillion and
counting in Iraq. One is a war, the other is just a waste of money.


Which is which? I understand Saddam is gone but Bin Laden is still
around.

?? Not sure of your point. Iraq was a war of choice that cost us $1+T,
not
counting the 100000s of ruined/lost lives. How does that equate to a few
missiles targeting China?

I was referring to the hundreds of billions we wasted in Afghanistan,
the lost/ruined lives and the damage to the fragile stability of
Pakistan accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Which would have been avoided if we had concentrated on Afg. to begin with
and stuck with it.


We would just have more body bags from Afghanistan.

Leave out the word "just" and you might have a point. We might have been
more successful, but it's impossible to know. Thanks GWB!

At least we killed Saddam. Bin Laden is still walking around.
Iraq was all about Israel anyway. The next war we will fight for them
will be Iran if Hillary fails to accomplish anything with diplomacy.
I hope she is successful but I am not optimistic.

Iraq was all about oil (for us).

If this was just about oil, Saddam would have sold us all we wanted at
a bargain price.

I'm not going to argue the Iraq war with you. It was a huge mistake, and the
area has a long history of being about the oil. If you want to claim Saddam
cared about Israel more than he cared about his own power, go for it.
Bush's/Cheney's interest was in cheap oil.

I'm not optimistic either, as it's a tough problem. But, I think we won't
be
doing the Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran that McCain joked about.

These guys are getting better about putting things they want to keep
so far underground that bombs don't work.