Bob:

Remember when Reagan said "There you go again."? Well there you go again. I am not only un-American (still-though patriotically un-American), I am also a "Chicken hawk" and an uninformed one to boot. I will get back to you on some things but right now I have to go cry in the corner. Tell me though, when evaluating the term "Chicken hawk", should I put more emphasis on "Chicken", "hawk" or should they be given equal weight?

Done crying now and can get back to something. In your first post you said "We were forced to carry an army into the peace following WWII because we decided to implement a Containment strategy of the Soviet union (yes, decided, there were other options on the table that were far less onerous to implement)."

In your last post you said this "Name a single situation, other than the deterrence of the Soviet Union in Western Europe during the Cold War, that has demanded our possession of a large standing peacetime Army in the history of the US."

So in your first post, you said there were other, better options to the Containment strategy that required a large Army to implement. Then in your last post you say a large Army was demanded in order to deter the Soviet Union in western Europe. My chicken, no, Chicken (I forgot to capitalize Chicken) heart is gratified to see that you have come around to opening your apertures and seeing that those old guys weren't so dumb after all when figuring what to do.

Stay tuned folks, more to come.