Maggie's Farm

I am not happy about the Gulf war or the war in Afghanistan or the war in Kosovo or the war in Somali. I was definitely against the war in Vietnam. Too young to have a voice about the war in Korea but I do feel good about the way South Korea developed. I basically have been opposed to every war and every military excursion except Grenada since 1952. I served 20 years in the Military and I oppose the U.S. going to war. But I ask what should we have done when Saddam took Kuwait and was about to take Saudi Arabia?? That is the basis for the war in 2003 with Iraq. Saddam signed a cease fire agreement in 1991 and agreed to many specific terms intended to prevent him from building up an army and developing arms and threatening his nieghbors. From 1992 until the invasion in 2003 Saddam ignored the agreement and did develop WMDs and build an army and threaten his nieghbors. If Clinton had been more agressive in enforcing the cease fire agreement it is likely the Iraq war wouldn't have been necessary. So the question for anyone who like me doesn't want war or the U.S. being the world police what should we have done in 1991? Let Kuwait and Suadi Arabia fall and Saddam take over the rest of the Middle East? And once we did kick Saddam out of Kuwait and destroyed his military and settled with a cease fire agreement should we have enforced the agreement even if it took military force? The point is that the Iraq war in 1993 was necessary because the cease fire agreement was not enforced by Clinton and Saddam was indeed building WMDs.
Now if the U.S. shouldn't have been involved in either of these wars do you really think that Israel would not HAVE to fight that battle and without our conventional power that they wouldn't have had to use nukes? Given all of that the question again is should we have saved Kuwait, Saudia Arabia and the rest of the Middle East or not? And if not what should we have done when the war went nuclear? You can only put your head in the sand until someone lights your ass on fire and then you have to actually do something about it. It's easy to say that any of these wars I listed were a mistake but then you must answer what you would have done when everything turned to shit. There is a price to pay for inaction too. If Bush hadn't destroyed Saddams war making power in 1993 I suspect that we would be discussing that inaction as a huge mistake.

Having said all that I still oppose the U.S. use of force without us being attacked however I would not be opposed to a judicial use of air power to attack ISIS targets of opportunity in Iraq to help the Iraq government and to decrease the risk ISIS poses to the Middle East and to us.