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Perhaps because we're not discussing Vietnam or Somalia. You are not being logical. You're intentionally attempting to mislead the reader by bringing up a wholly irrelevant side-argument.
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My point is that people over and under estimate in conflicts, including the US. Doing so does not make Saddam irrational. I do not believe Saddam can be classified as irrational, look at his career, he is smart, ambitious and calculating, he has survived the first gulf war, circumnavigated the sanctions and basically defeated them in Europe and is making it very difficult for Bush to actually find any basis whatsoever to attack Iraq. His war with Iran was well planned, the Kuwait operation was overambitious, but from his perspective at the time, makes perfect sense. Say what you will but he is a survivor (look at his rise to power) and a smart one.
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Yes, it was in their national interest. Which explains why they are now simply "pockets of resistance" instead of "the ruling Taliban". It simply wasn't in their national interest to house al Qaeda, because that's what got them a good ass-fucking by coalition forces. Get real.
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I think you are misunderstanding national interest - it is decided by the nation, not what you or anyone else thinks is best for the nation. Secondly as it was controlled by Al Queda, it not in the interest of the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden.
Your answer to cam is mostly answered in my first point, which you attempted to butcher with all the finesse of a chainsaw.
As for US casualties, it's worth noting that all the US tech comes to buggar all when it comes to street to street conflict, the US's own wargames in a custom made town showed around a 60% casualty rate, and that in a city, smart bombs are utterly useless.
On a side note
this article that appeared in the Australian today does a better job of articulating my arguments to do with the impact of any war on Iraq on the International COmmunity as a whole better than I could, gets a bit Australia-centric though.