Interesting read. I have always thought that there will be a clash of civilizations sooner or later, whether in the middle east or in China when that sleeping dragon wakes up. Whatever happens, I trust (however niavely) that whatever president is in office will take care of it. Before WWII the government was quite pacifist and only a (rogue) president had enough forsight to start getting things rolling so that we coudl do something about it. As we saw during/after 9/11 Americans, no matter how pig headed we are about things at times, will rise to the occasion when our core ideals (ie life, liberty justice) are threatened to point that makes us actually afraid. 9/11 was such a point and we did act on afganastan. However, Iraq was such a mess and seems so much more like a political/economical move that it gives the opposing view, liberal democrats etc a lot to work on. WWII didn't really have that as much there was good and evil. Today especially in Iraq, we seem as much of the bad guys as others, especially to the Arab people.
I wish that instead of invading Iraq, we would have finished the job in Afghanastan. the 80 or so billion that's been invested in rebuilding Iraq would have done so much for that country.
Anyway tough to say what's right or wrong now. We're in Iraq, we need to finish the job correctly. Marines without armor and not having any field choice about negotiatiions reminds me quite a bit about 'Nam. Next thing you know Rummy and Bush will be picking out targets to hit in the basemnet of the White House. I do think that Iraq was a justified war, the timing was lousy, and our tactics really suck. In war all plans go awry and you need to plan for that, It seems that the Bush administration had no clear plan for anything going wrong there. I know that it's only been 1 year that we've been over there and it'll probably take several years to get to a point that the place has setteled down. We'll see I guess.
