How Long Does US Plan on Staying In Iraq blares the headline. The story goes on to talk about how the US is spending money in Iraq on bases and building up infrastructure.
Yet, the story fails to mention the fact that the US still maintains significant military forces in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. Those facilities have all been in place for more than 50 years. Many of those bases aren't going anywhere, even 50 years later despite the fact that the threats that kept the US in Europe are no longer present - the Cold War is over - or that the host countries claim that they don't want the US there anymore although the resulting economic losses from base closures in Europe would be too much for even the most anti-US governments to contemplate seriously.
How about we give the Iraqi bases 50 years before declaring that the campaign was a failure. Or are we going to declare everything a failure 15 minutes after the fact because we didn't get instant gratification? (I'm betting the media is counting on the instant gratification part and the lack of knowledge on history).
Actually, we ought to reconsider our efforts in France, as that country is rioting again - this time about the changes in employment rules that actually permit employers to fire bad employees so that the country can deal with the 20%+ unemployment rate among teenagers and young folk (some of whom were rioting in November).
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