> Even a land invasion would be better than air strikes. Kosovo proved that air strikes by themselves are simply not effective, but kill huge amounts of civilians.

With such a wealth of history to choose from, it's not always effective to be so selective when choosing history to learn from. The bombing of Iraq during the Gulf War was *exceptionally* effective at taking out known strategic military targets. We had missiles so well directed that they sought out the elevator shafts of military installations, where they could cruise into the center of the building before exploding. Air strikes aren't always about pilots shooting at anything that looks like a tank. Most of the time, in fact, they are not.

Iraq's military was so thoroughly beaten before we sent the ground troops in that in many cases Iraqi soldiers surrendered without a fight. The fact is that those air strikes meant a *lot* fewer American casualties when the ground war started. *If* we go to war (whether or not we should is an entirely different debate), it only makes sense to do so in the way that preserves the most American lives while still being effective. Yes, I'd like to preserve the most Iraqi civilian lives as possible, too, but I'm not going to sacrifice American lives to do it.