Reply #15: What happened, you ask?

[agarrett1]

OK, I'll bite:

Lebanon: Two pullouts here. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon inspired Hezbollah. It taught the PLO that a sufficient number of casualties, however inflicted, will get them the results they want. They became more aggressive, and Israel has suffered immensely for it. Reagan's pullout from Lebanon has been cited by bin Laden as one of the proof's that we are weak, and will crumple if attacked - doubtless part of his own inspiration to attack us.

It should go without saying, but Lebanon is scarcely in a better situation for these pullouts. They are still an occupied country, only now they are occupied by Syria.

Somalia: Again, cited by bin Laden as more proof that the U.S. is a paper tiger. Somalia, again, has not exactly improved since our pull out either.

Viet Nam: After we left, the South Vietnamese government fell quickly. Over 100,000 people fled the country in any way possible, leading to one of the truly great exoduses (exodi?) of boat people. It is unclear how many thousands died in the escape. The North Vietnamese took over, and quickly opened re-education camps. While they were mere pikers compared to their neighbors the Khmer Rouge, they are still estimated to have killed over 200,000 people directly - and that is both a very conservative estimate, and excludes the massive number of indirect kills.

Drew Garrett