Lizard_King wrote:

I need clarification wrote:


What if I do both? IN THAT ORDER?

Here's an idea. When we decide we want "regime change" instead of "cash cow for Halliburton et al," we come up with some sort of game plan for after our amazing win? Now, I'm no super genius like yourself, but I would guess that if you want to install a regime sympathetic to the US's interests, you may want to stick around for a week or so JUST IN CASE things don't go to plan. Call me a pessimist, but doing the Icky Shuffle after winning an air campaign against a country stuck in the 16th century and without any airplanes then running off to the next sandbox to kick some 3rd grade ass doesn't sound to me like regime change.

There, I just provided an idea. You can now return to calling me names.

Did I miss the part where the coalition forces were pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq? No, I didn't think so. You can't possibly be serious if you expect Iraq to get to any state of western normalcy this quickly; a few decades of totalitarianism take a while to recover from (never mind the primitive wasteland we have to work with in Afghanistan). In any case, there is a lot to be said for moving on other targets before they have an opportunity to develop a gameplan beyond bombing their own people. For instance, it is quite clear that either theocratic Iran and any non-Saddam Iraq cannot coexist without one or the other falling. My money's on Iran regime changing itself within the next ten years, but it should be interesting either way.

In any case, what you provided was a vague expansion of what is already being done. Not much of a novel alternative, I think. What would you do differently in Afghanistan, for example, other than the present attempt at the merger of the tribal institutions already in place and some sort of democratic simulacrum to appease the masses, and maybe let some actual economic growth other than in heroin get off the ground?