Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
...Zimbabwe for example could have been and could still be sorted out with two non-ballistic cruise missiles. One for Mugabe and one for his Joint Operations Command (JOC) when in session. It would have been as easy as that. But there is no way China would give the nod for such action.
Nor is there much of any way the US Congress would give its approval of such an action -- not to speak of the rest of the world. While you may have an argument with Mugabe, I suspect the majority of your fellow South Africans would go bonkers criticizing the US had we foolishly done what you suggest.

As for no commitment in Africa, I presume you mean large scale combat troop commitment as opposed to the number of US force commitments in Africa today and over the past 17 years. Your logic on the issue was also shared before late 2001 by a number of people who said the US would not commit troops but would merely do what you suggest, lob a missile or two, therefor they could attack the US with impunity -- or close to it...

Every war we've been involved with for over 220 years occurred in large part because someone made the stupid assumption that "the Americans won't fight." The later ones tend to last too long because we foolishly try to be nice -- I think we're finally starting to realize that's really dumb on our part.