Repost as OP: All this talk of "right to retaliate" and "insurgents" is just legalistic twaddle

[ConservativeDemocrat]

98. Lydia, again, your perceptions run contrary to the facts...

Britain and France couldn't even sustain a bombing campaign in Libya without our help (which by the way, is another example of successful military intervention - that one man decided on: President Obama). And unlike Serbia, Libya had absolutely no airforce, and was in a desert, which made hiding equipment much more difficult.

The Serbian strategy was simple. They expected to be able to weather the bombing campaign, largely by camouflaging their military, continuing to empty the country of ethnic Albanians, and daring anyone to invade (for which there would be clear military casualties). Slobodan believed that for all their words, Europeans didn't really care enough about the Kosovarians to care if he treated them like Hitler treated the jews. At least not enough for their own kids to be killed over saving them. All bark, no bite.

Further, he had a bunch of pretty sophisticated anti-air defenses. Several aircraft were shot down in that campaign, including one of our vaunted "stealth" bombers, which didn't turn out to be all that stealthy when subjected to multiple radar sources (the so-called radar "invisibility" is uni-directional).

Had we taken more casualties, and the Serbians had more success, Slobodon might have been right. And he would have effectively won the war. And that means that if the U.S. wasn't in the war, we would have lost.

I won't even go into his incredible diplomatic coup of getting the Greeks to agree to overflights of their country, which was crucial. If you understand how Greeks and Albanians get along, you'd realize just what a master of communication he was.


Finally, my thesis is much different than the Washington Establishment. I largely agree with you that having a large amount of power gives you the temptation to use it. I simply note that Democrats seem to use U.S. military power as it should be: a subtle prod, used only as a last resort. While Republicans are (with the sole exception of Bush 1 in Kuwait), jingoistic idiots. The Washington Establishment instead believes that Republicans are tough (which is good) and Democrats are weak (which is bad). And never seems to notice that near all our military and foreign policy successes happen under Democratic presidents.

I will also note that the phrase "strictly defensive needs" is basically what we hang our hat on for just about anything. NATO is a defensive organization, except when preventing massacres. So is ANZUS. And SEATO. And CENTO. And the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines. And the U.S. and Japan Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement. All of these call for the U.S. to have military to hold up its end of the bargain.

In fact, it's pretty clear looking at this that if the U.S. wasn't doing this, there would be a lot more military around the globe, under the command of a lot more unstable actors. I'm pretty sure you would consider that a bad thing.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

p.s. None of this has to do with the lack of funding for domestic infrastructure, which we could pay for incredibly easily through eliminating tax-loopholes for the mega-wealthy.