General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Repost as OP: All this talk of "right to retaliate" and "insurgents" is just legalistic twaddle [View all]ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)...but given the facts, or lack of them, in the OP, let me humbly suggest that perhaps you've just been looking hard enough. Or your filters are so high that you just won't acknowledge certain things.
One of the problems of being a policeman is that it isn't the 1000 calls that are handled without incident, it's the one screwup by the idiot in force (GW. Bush) that gets all the publicity. In fact, when ideally handled, police power doesn't end in arrest or (in the case of world-policing) war. Right now, as we speak, the U.S. presence in the Japan/China island disputes is helping to prevent things from spinning out of control.
But even when it does get to outright war, absolutely beneficial events like saving Kosovo did not happen due to all those sternly worded U.N. letters to Slobodan Miloević. It happened when President Clinton said "enough is enough" and brought a halt to their "ethnic cleansing" through a targeted bombing campaign. And the Serbians were, it turned out, more than happy to rid themselves of that tinpot dictator, once they were given a chance. No oil involved.
I could go on for a lot longer, but instead let me bring you back to the basic facts. War is in precipitous decline. There is a reason for that. And it's little to do with sudden outbreak of goodness and niceness among the corrupt world elites. It more has to do with much higher personal risk to those elites who call for war. Suddenly it isn't just the grunts who do all the dying.
I will say that Republicans who push for belligerence in nearly everything can often make things worse. But even in terms of your named example of "making things worse" Iraq - the senior George H.W. Bush, did a fine job kicking Iraq out of Kuwait without any serious trouble. Indeed, other nations *paid* for us to do so. So we certainly didn't make it worse, as you posit.