On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 00:46:40 -0800, Fly-by-Night CC wrote:
In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:

I did NOT write this. Take more care with your attributions.

Well, jeez. At least Clinton didn't train and arm him and his cohorts as
Reagan/HWBush did - but then bin Laden was against the same government
we were against. Kinda simular to ol'Sadamn, no?

This, however, I did write:

Does the term "lesser of two evils (at the time)" have any faint
glimmering of meaning to you?

Perhaps not in these instances. Would the victory Iran might have won
over Iraq been more detrimental and costly to the US than the Gulf War
and the Iraq War plus any retribution for the current events we may yet
see in the coming decades?

What part of "at the time" didn't you get? Forseeable future, sure.
Decades later? Are even you that good at predicting, without the
benefit of hindsight?

Did outfitting bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets gain us all
that much considering the devastating loss of life on 9/11, the
financial hit our economy took, the costs of the war and rebuilding in
Afghanistan plus all the extremely costly security measures we have (and
have yet) to put into place?

Well, the Soviets are gone and never nuked us, so it seems like maybe
there may have been a benefit to that, yes.

I've not seen any analysis of these two issues and I'm not a political
historian or strategist so don't know how differing outcomes in either
situation might have affected world history. Perhaps we should have let
both bin Laden and Hussein fight their own wars and then dealt with the
outcomes and the victors.

Or, perhaps we should continue to do what makes the most sense at the time
for the forseeable future, and deal with exceptions as they come up. I
think we should be more vocal about "behave or we'll take you out" when we
do that.