Word: would
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...reaching the headquarters where Manuel Noriega was bottled up, the U.S. surely had the military muscle to do the job. The 12,000 U.S. combat troops under the Southern Command far outstrip the 6,000-man Panama Defense Forces in both training and hardware. But civilian and military casualties would have been high, if only because the vital military installations are situated in downtown Panama City. As a Marine officer pointed out, "Even an M-1 rifle can kill a lot of people in a crowd...
...certain how well these soldiers might have fought markedly superior U.S. Army and Marine forces backed by helicopter gunships and operating from several scattered bases. Macho U.S. officers insist the beer-bellied P.D.F. regulars would not have dared to challenge them. Skeptics argue that the limited holding operation the rebels asked for would probably have failed and that U.S. forces would have been forced into a much bloodier fight...
Even deadlier would have been any American attempt to seize Noriega when the coup leaders refused to turn him over, which would have pitted U.S. troops against not only the pro-Noriega forces but the rebels as well. Moreover, some units of the Dignidad paramilitary forces and the Doberman riot-control units, though badly trained and disciplined, might have resorted to subsequent guerrilla warfare. That would endanger not just American troops but also the 50,000 U.S. civilians living in Panama...
...last week to rescind the Medicare catastrophic health-insurance program that it had lopsidedly approved amid a self-congratulatory frenzy just last year. The Senate showed enough moxie to save fragments of the plan, but it too voted to kill a special income-tax surcharge (up to $800) that would have been levied solely on the affluent elderly to help fund the program...
Such profligacy must bring retribution, one would think. Yet Italy goes serenely on, racking up an enviable economic record and attracting little international criticism or even attention. Perhaps insolvency resides in the eye of the beholder, for there can be no doubt about the numbers. Italian governments have been abusing their credit cards for 20 years, piling debt onto debt. Only once in the past dozen years has the annual budget deficit been less than 10% of GDP. By contrast, the worst U.S. ratio was 3.8% in 1983; last year it was only 1.8%. Moreover, most of Italy's debt...