Originally Posted by Rochard

But a "quick and brutal bombing" doesn't work. Even less so with Middle Eastern countries where the population is spread out, and the government isn't always in country in all areas.

With Iraq, we removed their government and destroyed their military. Calling Iraq a military zone isn't correct. We aren't engaged in combat in Iraq. We've had seventeen deaths in Iraq in 2018, fifteen of which was "non hostile". The two "hostile" deaths were IEDs. That's not combat.

With Afghanistan, we removed their military and their government, but that doesn't say much. It's not like they ever had a strong military to begin with. Keep in mind our original target was Al-Qaeda, and in order to get to Al-Qaeda we had to remove the Northern Alliance government / military. When talking about Al-Qaeda, you need to remember we are talking small groups of men who live in huts. We bombed the shit out of Afghanistan and quickly defeated them, but small groups continue on. Bombing them and then walking away wouldn't have solved the original problem.

I honestly do not care. If the United States goes to war, we need stay there until the end of time. We need to send a strong message that says "If we go to war will stay there until the end of time". Don't think that's possible? We still have US military bases in Germany and Japan. We always will.

By the way, we had less deaths in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq in 2018.