Except when WWII ended...WWII ended. When Bin Laden was killed yesterday, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did not end, nor did they come any closer to ending.
i'm not downplaying 9/11, i live in the metro area and know people who were killed, and have many friends who know people who were killed. I just can't compare killing bin laden to ending WWII.. can't do it. i will agree to disagree with you good sir.
Well, actually, we kinda started it by putting a base in his holy land and ignoring his demands for us to leave his land in Saudi Arabia. But I guess that's irrelevant
Oh, so it's "his" holy land? I didn't realize that the scumbag owned that entire part of the world and his word is law.
I'll tell you what would end the fighting there: Nukes - because that's exactly what it took to stop our enemies dead in their tracks in World War Two. But I am confident that Al Quaeda is not more than a very small representaion of what we orignially thought, in the months and years after 9/11, they'd be nearly ten years later. If Hitler had been killed in the early 1940's, the war might not have stopped immediatly, or even for a while, but things would have gone much differently.
Point taken. But we didn't have Constitutional authority to be there. Being invited to defend a country isn't reason to set up a permanent presence there, especially when it will obviously affect American security at home.
The Constitution's word is suppose to be law. Under the Constitution, you wouldn't have a permanent base in a middle eastern country, especially when you KNOW that it will upset the population in that country.
Considering the fact that the bombing of Japan with atomic weapons was only 55 years before 9/11, how fucking stupid was bin laden to think that we've changed - didn't he and his people read some history books and realize that we don't take kindly to sneak attacks? Fucking ignorant asshole, he brought all this shit down - he must have thought that we actually believe that Judeo-Christian biblical horseshit about loving and embracing your enemies. Well, he learned the hard way.....and I don't think too many people will be in line to be next, for a while at least, until they forget.
Sure we did, our presence started a long time ago. Ironically an American was invited to Saudia Arabia to detect underground resources for the then impoverished nation, water. Water was found as well as the vast fields of oil. Militarily; The initial entry of the American armed forces into the kingdom occurred almost incidentally at the end of the Second World War, when the United States requested permission to build a modern airbase at Dhahran, near the Hasa oilfields, to support the movement of men and materiel into the Burma theater. Little progress was made by the end of the war, but the U.S. Army Air Corps saw the project through to completion in 1946. The Air Force leased Dhahran Airfield continuously for over a decade and a half, providing both reassurance and discomfort to their Saudi hosts.(11) Taken from; SAUDI ARABIA AND THE UNITED STATES
there isn't even any evidence bin laden had anything to do with 9/11, the FBI hasn't even "charged" him for it on the basis of no evidence.
Nothing in your post gives me reason to believe we had Constitutional authority to be there militarily. Congress never declared war, thus it was unconstitutional. Taken from your source: Our presence there was to protect Saudi Arabian interests, not the American taxpayer's interest.
I am very sure that WW II was a declared war and that Congress authorized the money to maintain the base in Saudia Arabia. Think diplomacy and the necessity to protect American partnerships, Allies, and investments in those areas, unfortunately that is a part of what makes the World go round.
Yes, we declared war on Japan and Germany, after Japan attacked us and after Germany declared war on us. None of that has to do with an airfield in Saudi Arabia that is kept running 10 years after the war, and wasn't even completed by the end of the war. Nor does it provide any basis to re-enter Saudi Arabia in the early '90s, and set up permanent bases. Protecting American allies and investments with tax-payer's money may be what makes the bureaucrats' world go 'round, but I think my world would continue spinning just fine without our world-wide military presence