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As for me, I believe Iraq was a clogged toilet that need to be flushed. Saddam was in violation of the cease fire agreement and thats that. Klintoon should have sent in the troops when the inspectors were tossed out,....whether or not they found anything was irrelevant.He was shooting at our pilots every day. 43 just finished the job 41 should have. BTW, it was the UN and Colin Powell that talked 41 into stopping the war because we didn't have a "mandate" from the UN to go to Baghdad. I believe Schwartzkopf wanted to go on in since he was already there. AKA Patton wanting to go on into Russia, aka MacArthur wanting to bomb the Yellow river with a nuke. We never learn to finish the job because we will have to later.Why didn't we just finish the North Koreans and the North Vietnamese, I'll never know. Just think if we had finished the Ruskies after the war, before they had nukes. I wouldn't have grown up diving under my desk at school and we would have a few trillion more in tax revenue. Why is Castro still breathing? Who is going to get upset if we invade Cuba?

Excuse me, I'm beginning to rant.

We need to stay the course in Iraq, or we will pay dearly later.( not that we aren't paying dearly now)

" Saddam was shooting at our pilots every day."

Yes. In addition to all else, our planes and pilots were wearing out from the endless mission Clinton set up---protecting the Kurds by air. Another option in Iraq would have been to simply partition the country and never withdrawn our troops---but I agree going into Baghdad would have been better.

"Why didn't we just finish the North Koreans..."

While I agree with much of what you say, this is in error. We obliterated the North Korean army and occupied their whole country---briefly.

Then the Chinese launched a surprise attack against US forces, who had inadequate intelligence, and we found ourselves back near the original starting line, and switched to "containment".

We undoubtably could have obliterated the Chinese army in Korea without too much trouble and retaken N. Korea. Probably should have, but I understand why we did not.

" Why is Castro still breathing? Who is going to get upset if we invade Cuba?"

I agree. The answer is we botched the Bay of Pigs, and this established the "principle" that you should never try to overthrow a communist government. At the time, conservatives did not realize how many communist agents of influence and even communist government agents participated in creating this "national consensus" idea. Now, of course, with communism supposedly "dead" for 15 years, we pay the price in Venezuela.

"Excuse me, I'm beginning to rant."

No excuse needed. Rants are fine, as far as I'm concerned.

"We need to stay the course in Iraq, or we will pay dearly later.( not that we aren't paying dearly now)"

Well, I'd like to get through the "first lap" of the course before 2008---get US soldiers and Marines off the streets of Baghdad, Fallujah, etc. and replaced by Iraqis. This will help ensure the re-election of a Republican President. I'd rather see US troops in bases near the border---patrrolling to seal it off.