#8 SAF:
“Do I think that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing? Sure. Do I think we did it in a cost effective manner? No way.”
Heck man, the military and the naval forces aren’t cost-effective by their very nature.
During the Revolution, the Navy could not get trained mariners to man it’s ships, since the salts had all raced down to the harbor and signed aboard privateers, (where you could make a share of the loot), and a privateer cost the government only the parchment and ink required to draft a Letter of Marque
As my fellow Seafarers and Maersk line mariners on the Maersk Alabama just proved, 20 unarmed profit-minded civilians can do a job that 15 warships cannot.
Which explains why the Feds will never, EVER allow us to have firearms with which to defend our ships with.
