I am not going to thank Reagan, who was out of office in 1984, for a military that we have today. What Reagan did is no9w obsolete or was destroyed in all the skirmishes and warts since 1984.
Juniorbush wasted HUGE amounts of money and lives, sending our military on a fool's mission, and unprepared with no plan after the conquest.
It was run by a collection of disturbed Jews who identified Baath with the Nazis and disbanded the Iraqi army and police, which led to several years of murderous anarchy. That destroyed huge amounts of our military.
Again Give them and army, they will give us a war.
Nice opinions ,
nothing correct in the pile.
If by "them" you mean all of them,.... maybe , only a few presidents in the last century have not had to deal with war.
A tiny fraction of the equipment and structure Reagan built has been used up or destroyed, Carter was a lot more distructive of the military by sheer neglect, but Carter too had to deal with war.
I am not happy with the loss of life we saw in Iraq, but considering the (realistic) alternatives , we got off very cheap.
The only solution to the quagmire we were in in Iraq that might have cost us less deaths and loss would be lots of high level bombing as did Clinton to the Serbs. The cost of that policy is much greater collateral damage , Sun Tzu would have agreed with the Clinton and Obama method. Maximising the cost to the enemys population can shorten the war, I daresay General Sherman would have also agreed with Obama and Clinton also about maximising damage to enemy population while minimising damage of any and all kinds to ones own side.
This I see as a serious failing of both Presidents Bush they both tryed too hard to minimise colateral damage and preserve the enemy population , even attempting quite hard to preserve arceological digs on enemy territory. This seems to have had the perverse effect of prolonging the conflict, getting the enemy accustomed to loss, and hardened .
I like both Bushes pretty well otherwise, but it would have helped a lot if President Bush II had been given a seminar on warfare by President Clinton, who I like on almost no other count.