I wasn’t against the war in 91. In fact, that was a perfect example of our military being used to punish an aggressor that was causing instability and threatening world markets. We didn’t go in and get ourselves bogged down trying to make Iraq a better place. Had we had the same military we do today, I would have advocated bombing Iraq until Sadam was forced out of power. I would not have been for a ground invasion followed by decades of propping them up however.
Every time we use our military for non military objectives, it comes back to bite us eventually. I once on here responded to someone saying that our troops deserve to come home with honor by saying that they come home with honor because they achieved every military objective given to them with both speed and precision and that just because the politicians keep setting non-military objectives, does not mean that our military comes home without honor.
I got a reply of “how is not allowing Al Qaeda a safe haven not a military objective”? Well, that is a military objective if use your military to punish those giving Al Qaeda a safe haven. It is not possible for a foreign military to do for a country what they should be doing for themselves. It is not the role of a military to go into other countries and change their cultures, values, belief systems, and way of life. It is simply not possible. It has never been done in the history of the world. Countries have been conquered and forced to change. Insurgencies have been put down with brutal force. But never in the history of the world has it been done what we are trying to do. It will not work and only when more of the lives of our own service-members have been lost and possibly a few more attacks against our civilians will we have learned the hard way. We are only delaying the inevitable.