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Did the Shock and Awe propaganda help or hurt the US in the eyes of the world?

Asked by ETpro (34605points) December 17th, 2011

In the buildup to the Iraq invasion, the Bush Administration bombastically boasted of a “Shock and Awe” assault the likes of which the world had never before witnessed. Cheney and Wolfowitz assured us the war would only take a month or two, that it would require only a light force, and that it would pay for itself.

After all the Shock and Awe was done, what actually happened was the war lasted 8 years and cost us 4.500 US lives, hundreds of thousands wounded, many with their lives devastated by the severity of their wounds, and $1 trillion now and counting. Estimates are the long range cost will run over $3 trillion with care and benefits for the Veterans and the large contractor footprint still there for training of the Iraqi army. Let’s be clear. This is how well Shock and Awe worked to subdue a third world country with a population about 1/10th that of the USA. So if we now face a first-world power like Russia, how effective will the threat of Shock and Awe be to them? Was all the bombast, boasting and chest beating a good idea, or a bad one?

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