>I've read so many times the Vietnam war was lost in the kitchen - because it was all on TV, and people at home were getting the picture, and the very reasons for the war were massively questioned.

That was definitely a problem, but hardly the reason the war was lost. It was much more a problem of the war being run from the White House than from reports on TV.

>During the Desert Storm, however, the reporting was strictly under control. Lesson learned and knowledge applied.

How was the reporting under strict control? CNN was reporting live from the center of Bagdad. Had an American plane been shot down, we would have seen it live. Is that the kind of control you are talking about? Or is it the interviews that we saw of American and British pilots who were captured and tortured by the Iraqis?

>On the large scale, surely not. But then any perpetrators of such things were never prosecuted. The general feeling on our side was they were at least tolerated, if not quietly encouraged.

So Americans just looked the other way while their fellow soldiers were targeting civilians? This just simply did not happen.

>His popularity sank each time there was a few months of peace. In 1997 he suffered a nearly mortal blow, when he lost municipal elections in most of the major cities. In 1998 his party (and the associated block) fell below 25% of support. In 1999 he came back to 69%, which he again lost only few months after piece came.

Below 25%, yet he was still in power? Amazing, huh?

>Oh they loved the bombs, even if they killed almost as many of them as Sloba's police and paramilitaries did. The bombing served the goals of their politicians.

That is simply untrue. Anything to back that up?

>One weird thing is that there wasn't much fighting there (check the German intelligence reports of the time) until the UN observers were pulled out.

And why did the UN observers pull out?

>Just threatening him is enough to have the nation rally around him. Deja vu.

No one was threatening him when he started the war with Iran. Nor was he threatened when he started the war with Kuwait. And he remained in power. Get the picture yet?

>What would work would be to empower his internal opposition - that worked in the case of his brother-in-spirit Milosevic. But to empower the opposition, you need to funnel some money, something in the order of magnitude of a cost of a couple Tommahawk missiles. And to set an example that the world would welcome the new Iraq, and make that example known to the people there. A massive presence of UN troops there, as peacekeepers, support to inspectors, whatever - would do much more, and render Saddam harmless with far less cost. And you'd win the hearts of Iraqis, not the corpses of their children.

So, which opposition group do you choose? Because they are far, far from united. A massive presence of UN troops? What dreamland are you living in? In case you didn't notice, Saddam kicked out the UN inspectors in 1998, and the UN did nothing. Do you really think that when they couldn't even keep UN inspectors there, that they will be able to put troops there? Get real.