Re:Key component? (Score 1)

My point regarding Germany is that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Tackling problems before they are unmanagable (aka. preemption) isn't a bad idea. Had european players adopted this philosopy pre-WWII a lot of bloodshed may have been avoided. But everyone saw the problem as belonging to someone else, and nobody dared to address it alone. The interesting part about this is that the League of Nations (equiv. to today's UN) was founded for exactly this purpose, but failed to act in the prevention of the war (and was subsequently dissolved due to its irrelevance). Now, 60 years later, the UN seems to be plagued by similar problems. If european nations were *really* concerned that the same scenario would happen again, they would work to enforce the resolutions they collectively pass in the UN. But instead, France has economic interests in Iraq, as does Russia, and fear their sweetheart deals will be ousted with the regime. Germany's economy has been hurting, and doesn't want the extra burden (this was also the case pre-WWII, the world was coming out of a depression and didn't want to act because of economic concerns). So to me this is largely history repeating, with the exception of one nation which learned something from history and is actually taking a stand.

Now, re: the nuke fearmongering, I haven't heard news of us dropping any nukes firsthand recently or suggesting we would, perhaps you like to give me the source of this information?.

Iraq hasn't done shit in 20 years.
Unless you count kuwait. But germany hadn't done shit for 20 years at the time, either...

Afghanistan was (and still is) not simply bloodlust. You can swat at bees all day, but they'll keep coming until you eliminate the hive.