re: What should the USA have done after 11 September 2001?

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Oh I am well aware...but taking down outlaw regimes because they are evil opens up quite a box. And if that is the justification for taking out Saddam...

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I've never said that Iraq wasn't discretionary. I've never said that Iraq wasn't messed up worse than Don King's hair.

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W attempted to throw a lot of darts against the wall hoping one would stick to give him justification for going in.

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Meh. Violating cease fire agreements/UN sanctions and terrorist "enabling" were good enough for me. I just wish we would have cut him off cleanly, installed our own military dictatorship/provisional government, written their constitution and handed it over to them in about 24 months (an accelerated version of what we did in Japan) - and just skipped the nation building. Iraq didn't need nation building (maybe Afghanistan did, but from whose perspective? Ours? The Afghans? - but that's a different conversation).

Of course the Balkans didn't either - sadly, that template has tainted virtually my entire military career.

Nation building. Harumph.