Larry Gude
Strung Out
By some odd coincidence, a couple of major wars started up right about the same time. We could call that a "sudden and dramatic increase in demand for products and services".
Prince is everyone's favorite pinata, but... ]
You honestly don't expect me stand by and let that non sense go, do you? Those wars didn't just start up out of the blue. We chose them both. A handful of delta operators had bin Laden pinned down and had a plan to end it. They were told to stand down and let their indigenous partners finish the deal for PR reasons. Either we let him go on purpose or honestly thought a bunch of people who sauntered to the front after breakfast every day and ran home for supper every night were gonna close the deal or it was on purpose. You take your pick. In any event, BIG Army wanted in on the party and that is what they got. Iraq was completely a war of choice and one we spent, at the very minimum, 18 months building up to politically; more than enough time to expand existing special operations forces or even to create a whole new diplomatic security force. Wearing US uniforms. Under US command. Prince, and others, worked their asses off to get some gummint cheese out of this.
It was a mistake and is one. In my view.