I have been curious as to what the general "casualty figures" are for periods of "peace". There has been so much media attention focused on casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters...I wonder if it is really that much higher than what occurs in peacetime, due to the day-to-day happenstances in the military (training accidents, etc.). I am willing to bet that the peacetime/training figure is *much* higher than most people assume. Over the past 10-15 years....I know more members of the military who have lost their lives "back home", doing their job....than have perished overseas.
I think our intervention in Somalia may qualify. And although we (the U.S.) have not personally intervened on a large scale, other Western powers have intervened in Liberia.
Heard the same. Also heard Clinton had a perfect opportunity for a direct strike via cruise missile. Come to think of it, I think Clinton admitted this fact on tv.
I don't remember which country it was but I recent heard on Fox that either Pakistan or India could have handed Bin Laden to Clinton on a platter and the idiot turned them down.
How do we know they still don't have WMD's? It's not exactly the smallest place in the world. They may still find something at some point. No one expected Saddam to pop up from a Spider hole.
It's been 8 weeks and they still haven't found a missing teenager in Aruba and that's with the whole nation working together to find her.
We don't KNOW, but I have to believe that with the number of people who would have had to know SOMETHING about them, that we haven't found any trace of them yet.
As above, it's likely that only one person 'knows' what really happened, and if that person doesn't talk, it makes it a lot harder.
You're speaking as though both instances are a blind scavenger hunt. They're not. In the case of Iraq, we had all sorts of information that led us to believe they were present. Following up all of those leads has not yet led us to the WMDs.
I agree, there is a POSSIBILITY that they are still there. There's also the possibility that they were moved. There's also the possibility that they haven't existed (in recent years).
I tend to agree with the possibility that they were moved -- but the sad part is that lacking any credible intelligence, we'll likely never find them. From that perspective, one must view the war on Iraq as having been positive -- if the threat of real invasion caused Saddam to hide them so that they couldn't be found, then we have (at the very least) postponed their use. On the other hand, we now have no way of knowing if/when someone DOES find them...
The casualties of this war are fantastically small compared to the past. By this time in WWII we would have lost hundreds of thousands but if you listen to the media, the U.S. has lost again and in every way possible. As far as the media is concerned we should be able to win an all out nuclear war without a loss of any kind and make money in the process.
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