Law suits and the President
 

I'm fairly certain there was internal instability in Greece and Italy well into the 50s and beyond depending on how you define instability. The type of on going instability may have been different, but that's probably because the Europeans were not enlighted enough to invent homocide bombing.

Law suits and the President
 

No, I think it will be more like Southern Europe, that's why I have been using Greece and Italy as my examples.

Law suits and the President
 

Law suits and the President
 

At first he tried to reduce the military budget. Then when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan he finally saw the light.

Law suits and the President
 

Before the invasion I gave some friends the option of 100-1 odds that we would find WMDs in Iraq. No one took my bet. I thought it laughable that anyone thought that there might not be WMDs. If I were Bush, I don't care what the intelligence guys told me, there is no way you would have convinced me that Iraq had no WMDs. And if our intelligence was sure there were no WMDs why did our military take such precautions assuming that they did? No one entered that theater with out a full chemical suit.

Law suits and the President
 

You are catching on.

Law suits and the President
 

Fair enough. Your original statement was Europe and Japan -- I doubt there was any instability in Japan, but I think that the Greek communists and royalists were busy shooting each other until 47 or 48.

Although I think that the scale was vastly different from what is going on in Iraq.

Korea
 

What about South Korea after the Korean war? That place was a mess. There was a massive communist insurgency for years.

Korea
 

Not to mention Viet Nam.

Law suits and the President
 

Well, initially you used "post-war Europe and Japan." But hey, let's not make you stick with your argument.

I'm sure hundreds of people were being killed each week by Mussolini loyalists in Italy as late as 1957. Right?

And, of course, there is no difference between a war that we had to enter and a war that we chose to enter (and could have taken some time to plan for). None at all.

Law suits and the President
 

Hence Ty's use of the word "started."

Law suits and the President
 

Well, I'm definitely catching something. I blame the unions.


eta: I'm sorry -- the Unions. When discussing the all-powerful, one must capitalize.

Korea
 

Yeah, and we definitely had the same urgent need to go into Iraq, what with all the North Koreans pouring across an ally's border.

Law suits and the President
 

1. the fact that the instability in Europe and Japan is not fully analgous to the situation in Iraq does not change the fact that we made a commitment to the countries of Western Europe and Japan to assist in rebuilding them after the war and that commitment did not end 2 years after the war was over. Forgetting about the fact that we still have 100,000 troops in Europe today, we kept troops in Europe through the end of the cold war as part of our commitment to ensure a lasting peace in Europe. The costs may be different than our current costs but we are starting with a different base point.

2. Remind me, why did we have to enter the war in Europe? Regardless of whether Germany declared war against us, we could have focused on Japan and let Hitler have Europe. It would have been a while before he could reach us with any affect and we would have had the bomb by then. Didn't Roosevelt run a campaign in 40 where he was going to keep us out of the war.

In Boston on October 30 FDR said; “I have said this before but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

OMG, he lied!

Law suits and the President
 

Certainly Unions are directly responsible for the destruction of the public school system in the US.