Invaded is an interesting term.
Libya, Cuba, Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia, Iran, Guatemala, Hungary (though this is still open to debate), Brazil, Haiti, Ecuador, Afghanistan (twice), Cambodia, The Congo, etc.etc.etc.

Know your history?

this is too easy. we just did one a few months ago. we just didnt do it by foot.. just by air.

the answer is.......

See above, the list goes on and on...

:zz::zz::zz:

Italy, Germany....Lol, hysterical...:zz: you left off Japan...

all the others, how many HOURS did we spent in any of them...except Afgan, but like i said 1000 times, after 911 bomb the schit out of the terrorist bases there, hunt down and kill bin laden and be out in ONE year tops...but bin laden was not a priority for dumya bush...had Iraq on his mind, remember...

Years and years. The intelligence community has replaced or repaired nearly every dictator in the last 70 years. You can't be more than 25 years old to be so narrow in your world views.
:wf

the us basically entered the world stage (and became a partner in euro wars that have gone on for millenia) in world war one. i wonder sometimes how history would be now had we just stayed out and let germany win that one. there wouldn't have been a hitler, a ww 2, etc...everything that occured because of the 'peace' that ended ww1.
at any rate, hours doesn't begin to explain where we've invaded and what we've done over the last hundred-odd years.

So we should steal their oil?

No, we earned it...:tro:

We are still in Germany, Japan, Korea...

C'mon man, we're talking full scale invasions of soviergn countries that were not any threat to us!!...Not overnite rescues in Granada or taking out bin laden in Pakistan, or Bay of Pigs fiasco and Cuba was a definite threat and RFK stared down the Russkies....Don't try to compare Bush's costly folly in Iraq to any other 'invasion'...

If the US hadn't entered and help halt Germany's advance WW1 might have never ended. We are talking about the US occupying Iraq for a few years like it is the greatest tragedy in history. You think that Germany would have peacefully ruled Europe especially with Russia looming on the Eastern front?

But not as occupiers....and they want us there...hell, we are all over the world...

Isn't it odd that Germany and Japan started the war and we and allies defeated them and now those nations are among our best friends....

germany was on the cusp of winning the war when we got in. it's why they had once again said all shipping was a target; they figured they'd win out before we could get over there.

my only point was the peace that was forced on germany after that war was what eventually lead to ww2. i've done more studying on ww1, germany was made out to be the bad guy-but the start of that war, and the build up...well, i don't think germany was the only one at fault for that war.

i don't think us invading iraq was the greatest tragedy in history-there's a lot of history, and a lot of tragedy.
but i do think that it was a tremendous mistake. ill advised, ill planned, poorly waged, and took too much away from afganistan.

not so sure you could say they want us there. they're just accepting of it in germany, cause there's nothing they can do to change it.
as for japan, they've been trying to get us out of there, especially okinawa, for years.

You honestly believe this? We are in those two countries specifically because they werent allowed to have a huge military buildup post world war 2 yet needed the protection from cold war Soviet Union and now in the case of Japan as a counter to China.

"The peace forced on Germany" is an interesting way to put it. Perhaps "They lost" would be a better way to explain why German nationalism led to Hitler and WW2.

I wasn't inferring that you in particular said that Iraq was the greatest tragedy in history but when you look at past "wars" it really is hardly more than a blip on the radar screen.

i know why we stayed there after the war. but it's been 70 years now. things have changed. however, the fact that we're still there doesn't mean japan and germany still want us there.

i say forced on germany because france in particular laid most of the blame for the start of the war on germany, when in fact that's really not true. the weeks leading up to ww1 were a colossal cluster**** of epic proportions. had austria just gone into serbia on her own, things probably wouldn't have escalated as they did. but there's a saying that an unjust peace is better than a just war, so they ultimately agreed to the terms.
then there's the fact that an armistice was declared; it wasn't a win-more of a temporary ceasefire while they tried to work up a plan to end the war. germany almost went back to fighting again, rather than accept france's offer. wilson did his best to keep france from imposing such harsh terms. the harshness is what lead to everything that germany went thru after, and what lead to hitler's rise, and eventually to ww2 in europe.

and i agree completely-when one looks at iraq in a historical vein, it's nothing. however, it's impact on this country in its short history is huge.

on another note about ww1, if anyone is ever in kansas city, mo, the ww1 museum is located there. excellent displays, lots of info. 34000 miles of trenches on the western front alone.

Have they really changed that much? N Korea has nukes, Russia will soon have a dictator once again, Iran is close to nukes, the Chinese have recently been rattling sabres. Japan and Germany get a personal bodyguard at a fraction of the cost it would have to spend if they did it themselves. Japan has had economic issues far longer than us and you better believe that they are happy to have us there when the N Koreans lob another rocket over them like they did not that long ago. If the Germans wanted us out, we would have been out but they dont want us to simply move to Poland which would be happy to have us.

Sure but what if we hadnt got involvd and France and other countries were annexed. It would have only been a matter of time until Russia ramped up and went to war with Germany again and with the Germans so spread out most likely constantly putting out fires from the underground which wouldnt have been so happy with being taken over they might have actually lost. Would Russian control of Europe be a positive? Obviously hypo's but it isnt a given that germany would have sucessfully ruled Europe peacefully. As a matter of fact you could argue that there might have been multiple wars.

The invasion of Iraq was foolhardy, but some of you act as if Saddam wasn't already on thin ice with the international community. You remember things like the conditions to end the 1991 Gulf War, UNSCOM, and the no-fly zones, right?

True, but how were they such a threat that required invasion and 8 year war?

And over 1 Trillion dollars. Going forward unless we are attacked I say we institute a 10% war tax to pay for any of these wars. Congressional approval required. We will see how many of these useless wars we are invovled in.

The real danger here is the looming Russia/Turkey problem.




Should Russia make a move from the rear on Turkey...they would surely need Greece.

you are correct that germany makes out economically since their protection is on our dime. and thats my point...we are paying thru the nose for them. does it help us?

Bush's war was the first one the US didn't pay for when we invaded. What's a trillion on the taxpayers necks for decades, when you can give billions unaccounted for, to your contractor friends?

thats the thing...no real way of knowing how things would have gone on from ww one. russia didnt really start exerting real power til after the second war. they got out of ww one before the end and of course had their revolution. it took a whuile for them to become a world player again.
im not suggesting that germany shouldnt have had conditions at the end of ww one. but the harshness of those conditions are what ultimately lead to hitler, rearming, and invasion.
at any rate, interesting to speculate, altho of course it really is a useless exercise.

And they will argue this point with you :zz: They will bitch about the deficit yet be for these unpaid wars. They will be against taxes yet be for unfunded wars..... .

This is a huge reason we went to war - it's very, very profitable for friends of Bush-Cheney. Oil and war. That's why aggressive neocon politicians are so popular and sell so quickly in Washington.

Watching Romney, Newt, Perry, Bachmann and Santorum trip over each other at the debate the other day, trying to say how quickly they will bomb Iran, is neocon wet dream. Watching Romney brag about how he'll double the size of the navy, and immediately increase the army by 100,000 troops, should really bring in the PAC dollars.

And the below is exactly why Occupy exists. The American people, almost half of whom now live near or in poverty, have had enough.

The below wasted billions - given to Cheney and Bush's friends at Halliburton - would buy alot of food and healthcare for American citizens. Bailed out every single underwater mortgage. Bought college educations for hundreds of thousands.

But no! The Republicans scream we can't spend taxpayer dollars on .... the citizens who give them!

No country has EVER won a war in Afghanistangoing back THOUSANDS OF YEARS. It broke the Soviet Union.. Why on earth would we buck those odds???? But I guess we will do the now thing and simply declare victory prior to departure... Trillions spent, countless lives lost... They still hate us and it will degrade into chaos once we leave but hell, we will declare victory. Republican, Democrat... They all suck. Elect Ron Paul and buy as much gold as you can afford once it is clear he is in.

I love watching Ron Paul at these debates ... Newt says he will drag the Supreme Court into congressional hearings if they don't like their rulings, the rest promise to start immediately war in Iran ... and Ron Paul is the only one who looks amazed and says to them, "We have a Constitution, you can't do that"!

You GO, Ron!

And you have to realize that the taxpayers are broke now, the middle class is gone. The only way for the wealthy military-industrial complex to continue to be fed is to have their politicians steal the Medicare and Social Security dollars and funnel those dollars into the private sector via Wall Street . It's the only "free government" money left available to them to steal.

Oh! And don't forget to distract the citizens. Get the citizens to hate each other by demonizing their fellow citizens so they infight and can't see you steal their money: unions, schoolteachers, firefighters, police are the evil ones is this society. SQUIRREL ! GET THEM! THEY have caused us to be broke!

:tro:

i agree, they do all suck. i find it funny some blame bush, but when others say obama hasnt fixed anything, bush bashers then say he cant fix it all himself. that congress has a hand in it. hello! congress always has a hand in it. our govt has gotten us in all our messes, not just one person. and its been years in the making. thats why i was cynical when so many bought obamas hope and change lines.

stop it!

Andrew Basevich: After IRAQ, War is U.S.
 

Editor's Note: Andrew J. Bacevich is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University. This post is one of four from the Council on Foreign Relations in response to the question, Was the Iraq War worth it?
By Andrew Bacevich
As framed, the question invites a sober comparison of benefits and costs - gain vs. pain. The principal benefit derived from the Iraq War is easily identified: as the war's defenders insist with monotonous regularity, the world is indeed a better place without Saddam Hussein. Point taken.
Yet few of those defenders have demonstrated the moral courage - or is it simple decency - to consider who paid and what was lost in securing Saddam's removal. That tally includes well over four thousand U.S. dead along with several tens of thousands wounded and otherwise bearing the scars of war; vastly larger numbers of Iraqi civilians killed, maimed, and displaced; and at least a trillion dollars expended - probably several times that by the time the last bill comes due decades from now. Recalling that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda both turned out to be all but non-existent, a Churchillian verdict on the war might read thusly: Seldom in the course of human history have so many sacrificed so dearly to achieve so little.
Yet in inviting a narrow cost-benefit analysis, the question-as-posed serves to understate the scope of the debacle engineered by the war's architects. The disastrous legacy of the Iraq War extends beyond treasure squandered and lives lost or shattered. Central to that legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft. With all remaining prudential, normative, and constitutional barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is U.S.
Central to [the war's] legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft.
One senses that this was what the likes of [Vice President Dick] Cheney, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, and [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz (urged on by militarists cheering from the sidelines and with George W. Bush serving as their enabler) intended all along. By leaving intact and even enlarging the policies that his predecessor had inaugurated, President Barack Obama has handed these militarists an unearned victory. As they drag themselves from one "overseas contingency operation" to the next, American soldiers must reckon with the consequences. So too will the somnolent American people be obliged to do, perhaps sooner than they think.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of Andrew Bacevich. For more, visit CFR.org.

this, along with lives and treasure squandered, is what bothers me most. we used to have a policy of peace thru strength. we used to refuse to resort to violence unless we were first attacked. it seems 9-11 has become carte blanche for our govt. to decide who to attack and how-but to not necessarily worry about why. our treatment of borders other than our own as only a line on a map is a symptom of this new behavior. our 'either with us or against us' mentality continues along with the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' line of thought.
our foreign policy has been a disgrace for years; it needs a new mindset. we must consider our best interest first, last and always. we used to stay out of foreign conflicts, we need to go back to that.

Well, every single Republican candidate (except for Libertarian Ron Paul) wants to immediately start another war in Iran. The military industrial complex is throwing money at them. The American public is apparently too stupid to be appalled (they cheered this at the last debate). Considering that most people less than 30 years old have been trained that this is normal and rightous, via the disastrous 8 years of the last administration, it's not surprising.

So good luck with that.

Iraq: Taps
 

Editorial in today's paper...


Check the link below for full piece...Last para, the word suzerainty is used...sounds like one of yours...lol...found several definitions and still :zz:

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/r...ps-ar-1550241/

Never heard of it! But from those various definitions, I would say, no, the Republican party at least most certainly hasn't lost their taste for being the God-Given Suzerain of the world :D

It was disgusting to hear John McCain stand on the Senate floor the other day and accuse this President of virtually treasonous acts for bringing our troops home. Maybe he's just lost his friggin' mind, finally. I seem to remember years of blanket, "support a wartime president or YOU are treasonous!"

That only applied to G. Dumya Bush's presidency....also you weren't a Patriot, didn't support the troops, and hate America....heard it all...