Quote:
Originally posted by Sir Taliesin:
First of all, I only wish war was as clean as you think it needs to be. Second of all, is it our fault that the Iraqi's set up their military targets in the middle of civilian populations? If they had been building a nuclear weapon under a hospital, would tat hospital have been a viable military target? What do you believe? I know what I believe. I'd have blown that place to kingdom come!!! What about a chemical weapons factory in an elementary school. Is that a viable target? Damn straight it is! Especially in the hands of a man that is willing to use such weapons! I was in the Gulf War. I regret now that we didn't finish him off, but I didn't feel that way at the time. At the time I was afraid that the rest of the Arab world would turn on us and we'd have to fight our way back out. I think that's waht a lot of our people thought too. If I had it to do over again Saddam would be died and his head on a gate in Bagdad for all the world to see. I also regret that we didn't help the Shites in the south and the Kurds in the north after the war was over. Especailly when they came begging at our compound gate for weapons to fight Saddam with. That was another mistake. But I in NO WAY regret ever going over there and doing what we did! Never!!! And yes I know what I ws there for. It was OIL plain and simple! If Saddom had gotten control over the Arabia oil fields, we'd all be cowtailling down to him now!!!
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I do not have any such illusions about war regarding it being clean. I am keenly aware that it is a dirty, nasty, sloppy, terrible business. As the infamous General Sherman (infamous in the south at least
) said succintly: "War is Hell."
It is precisely for that reason that I think war should be entered only as the absolute last resort, when all other options have been exhausted.
Regarding the Gulf War, that was another case of us jumping into war mode hastily and unnecessarily. I will not elaborate further on this point in this post, as the many statements regarding the US never doing anything seriously wrong in other threads has made me decide to start a few history threads addressing this point and others, when I have a chance. Look for such a thread, in the hopefully near future