For me, it was "Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity Is Finally Over": https://www.theonion.com/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of...

The foresight... still hurts to this day.

Wish it had gone this way. From 1998:

https://www.theonion.com/clinton-threatens-to-drop-da-bomb-o...

Yes, this was an incredibly prescient article.

This one just keeps on aging like fine wine.

The article is funny and I agree with overall sentiment, but it's always surprising how people just forget Kosovo and Somalia. Clinton bombed a European country and doubled down on a hopeless mission in an African hellhole (before giving up), not exactly "sustained peace abroad". Even if you agree with the moves, you can't say it was all peace and love.

True, but those were tiny interventions that hardly affected mainstream USA at all, unlike the brutalizing experience of 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the following decade.

It's telling that the Iraq or Afghanistan vet (or both!) has replaced the Vietnam vet in TV shows and movies.

what does it tell?

the only thing it tells me is that time moves forward and a 70+ year old Vietnam veteran can't fit the role.

if you're saying that it indicates that the conflicts had a large impact, I would argue that actually it's because the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts lasted a long time and had an impact on Americans specifically, and Americans specifically have a large impact on television/movies/media.

Go ask Albanians and Serbs about their 'tiny intervention'.

The Americans lost 4500 in Iraq and 2400 in Afghanistan.

10000ish were killed in the Kosovo War, and 200,000 people ( at least ) were displaced.

Now, this pales in comparison to the casualties of the two hosting countries.. but I doubt we're talking about movies and media that feature veterans of the Iraq war from that side of the conflict.

The context of the post you replied to is effect on culture in the US. Were you looking for someone to go off on, or did you sincerely miss it?

Comparing the Kosovo and Somalia operations to Iraq and Afghanistan is like comparing a fly to a whale in basically any terms that matter. Human suffering, duration, lives lost, monetary cost, reputational cost in the world, etc.

How do you watch TV shows or movies?

I love: https://www.theonion.com/bush-finds-error-in-fermilab-calcul...