Fell, I've thought the same thing about WWII and what its precendent means for us nowadays. Different times call for different attitudes, but I've heard it argued both ways about Hitler: why didn't we stop him before he did all those horrible things? some people ask. We should have known, they say. Yes. We should have. But if we (that is, not the US, because we weren't involved at the time, but Britain and France) had taken him down before he actively invaded another country, would history be singing a different tune? Would we have been saying that Britain was the aggressor, punching down a Germany already weakened by WWI and reparations?
What I'm trying to say is it can go both ways for that situation. Anyway, Fell said it better than I can, about setting precedent on invading other countries. I think I need to stop thinking about this. My uncle's in the Air Force and he's been over in the Middle East three or four times in the last year and a half, and I just found out that this last time, which was supposed to be a 45 day assignment, is now indefinite. Let's just pray that whatever happens, it's done quickly. I have homework I should be concentrating on anyway.
By the way, did you guys know that I'm in grad school now, those of you that know me from before? I've been in Boston since January, going to Simmons College and working on my master's in Children's Lit. Fun!
(Tangent: for class I just recently had to read the James Cross Giblin book The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, which just won the Sibert award, the equivalent of the Newbery for nonfiction. I highly recommend it, by the way, as a straightforward history of the rise of Hitler's power. You all probably know this, but several years before he came into power, he was involved in a coup that sent him to prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf. What if Hitler had been taken out then? Would history be any different? Or would the social conditions just have brought a different madman to power? Not that I'm trying to start a discussion on it--just thoughts I had as I read the book.)