Actual goal in Iraq was to take over their oilfields and let Haliburton run them to finance the invasion and make scads of money, dirty dicks new version of colonialism. The excuse was WMD, Sadamm considered Iran a much more dangerous nation than the US and wanted them to think he had nukes. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are still active in Afghanistan as well as what, 50 to 75 other nations. If we took territory in Nam it  would be abandoned, it came down to the theory that if we killed enough of the VC's they would quit fighting, thus the importance of the body count game. It was much like an attack on a village of native Americans, yes Sir 450 warriors killed, when it was really 425 women and children and 25 adult males. Look at the krap they pulled on Tillman, and the story concocted about that gal that was later rescued from a hospital. We need to stop being a colonial bully and stop selling arms to all these folks that turn them on us. Many places are too corrupt to be a democracy.