Even if Iraq succceds in five years, it may fail utterly in ten (e.g., backslide into civil war, draw us into a war vs. Iran, etc.).
But any failure in the future would not have been the fault of the US.
IE, was it the fault of France or whoever that we had our Civil War? No we had our ouwn issues to deal. BUT that doesn’t suggest our Revoluion wasn’t worth it.
Everything has a value, even human life. Elementary economics. This is why we don’t spend $100 billion researching a cure for a disease 5 people have, while we DO spend billions resarching cures for AIDS and treatments for various cancers. When you have a scarcity of resources, like we do on this planet, EVERYTHING has a cost/benefit analysis assosciated with it.
You misunderstood what I was saying.
You can’t place a value on somethings because some things are “invaluable”.
Photos of your family are worthless, yet family photo albums are the first things people save in fires. Why??? They have no “market value”. It is because they hold meaning to the owners.
You can not put a price on that, and you can’t put a price on freedom. You also can not put a price on right and wrong.
There are MANY things you cannot put a value on.
But back to the point at hand, How much is too much?
There is no price for doing the right thing.
I will submit, probably without argument, that if we KNEW it would take ten years, 50,000 casualties and 4 trillion dollars to “win” in Iraq, the public would demand an immediate pullout. There’s no way we’re going to bankrupt ourselves for some country in the Middle East.
Wrong.
You fail to acknowledge the big picture. I’ll get to this later.
So you would spend a billion a person in your pursuit of freedom? Do you see the absurdity of this?
PRICELESS. Not everything is dollars and cents. :D An that comes from a Republican. :D
Obviuisly, less than what you think it is. We don’t have unlimited resources to change every govt in the world that is mean to its people.
Then why bother to even try and help the poor??? We can’t feed everyone. Why should the gov spend money on Education??? we can’t educate everyone. Why try to even Cure diseases??? we cant cure everyone, Etc.
You do what you can and everyone pitches in.
Come on!!! I thought Liberals were the compasionate ones.
Okay, now to get back to the other topic, the big picture.
You fail to see that this war has been coming for a long time, and that Iraq is a battle in the War on Terror. If we weren’t in Iraq, we’d be fighting these thugs in Afghan or some other place.
They declared war on us (the West) in the 90’s. They weren’t going to just give up on their own.
Terrorists can always come up with some bogus reason to kill. Remember Sept 11 happened before we removed Saddam, same with the Cole, same with the Marine barracks in the early 80’s. what about the 1972 Munich games???
This is WW3. They wish to establish an Islamic Fascist Empire from the Med all the way to SE Asia and we must do whatever we have to to stop them.
This was explicitly stated in a Zarwahi (sp???) letter. Surely you must have seen this.
You seperate Iraq from the War on Terror, where in reality it is essential to it and just the most recent front.
What are these dividends?
Removal of Saddam
Removal of his Sons
Elections in Afghan
Elections in Iraq
Elections in Palastine
Israel out of Gaza
Elections in Egy
Libya gives up its WMD program
Syria out of Lebenon
Pakistan has become a good ally on terror
Several head terror leaders have been killed or captured
Etc,
EDIT:
I didn’t want to delete it, but to help out Mary I put everything in Red that Mary can feel free to ignore as I don’t see it is really significant to my point yet something she focused on. I’m not writer so, sometimes stuff may not come across right. But the Stuff in Red is “striken from the record.” :D