This IS the WaaaaaPost, isn't it? What's going on?Walllll, guess they didn't want to go down this road ??? . . .
Posted on 07/19/2003 1:47:22 PM PDT by Pokey78
In the summer of 1945, occupied Germany's cities lay in rubble, hunger and disease prevailed, and tens of millions of displaced persons foraged to survive or lived behind barbed wire. Criminals thrived on the black market. De-Nazification had barely begun. That July, three months after the war's end, no one could have foreseen Germany's political future, its economic miracle and astonishing reconstruction.
During the federal occupation of the South after the Civil War, a hostile, impoverished population lived amid ruins and cholera. Deadly riots and murders were common. The terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan enjoyed far greater support among the population than do today's Baath Party dead-enders in Iraq. Attempts to achieve inclusive democracy were frustrated for a century.
By historical standards, our progress in Iraq is extraordinary. While we cannot predict the character of the future Iraq with precision -- and we must have realistic expectations -- we already may claim with confidence that we will leave the various peoples of Iraq a more humane, equitable political environment than they ever have experienced. It will then be their own to improve upon or ruin.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Wow ! This is the Washington Post ? Amazing.Yet the breathless media reporting of each American casualty in Iraq implies that the occupation has failed. Yes, every soldier's life matters. But we also need to keep the numbers in perspective. In one recent week, as many Americans died in a workplace shooting in Mississippi as were killed by hostile action in Iraq. The total casualties for the war and its aftermath hardly rise to the number of deaths on our highways over a long holiday weekend. Considering the dimensions of our victory, the low level of our losses is something entirely new in the history of warfare. But the quest for daily headlines is not synonymous with a search for deeper truths.
Couldn't be he didn't know diddly squat.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/948434/posts
These are easy questions to answer, with a little research. These are questions which, if not answered, make any stories about current events in Iraq incompetent by comparison.
Congressman Billybob
This IS the WaaaaaPost, isn't it? What's going on?Walllll, guess they didn't want to go down this road ??? . . .
In Germany and Japan, we were fighting national armies, armies which after getting the snot beat out of them, were surrended by what passed for the legitimate government. No such surrender occuried in Iraq, only local forces surrendered to American and British forces, unit by unit, so in effect the war with the Baathists is still on, and will be until we find Saddam or his DNA. In Japan the head of the local relgion authorized the surrender and decreed that the people not resist the occupation. Cooperation was excellent, not surprising when their god commanded it to be so.
In Germany people had no long history of hating Americans, nor were they religiously motivated to do so, since we shared relgions and even branches of religion. Many of the American forces were even of German ancestory, since at the time it was the most common ancestory for Americans. The cultural and religious differences were not nearly so large as in the current instance.
In Iraq, it's as if the SS took to the hills and forests to continue the fight, infiltrating into the population to pot the odd yank.
Of course, to make that comparison complete, you would have to only look at the data from the first 100 days or even 6 months, or so after VE day, not the entire period of the occupation. Also, the Germans were damn grateful to be in the American, British or even French areas of occupation, rather than in the Russian areas. In fact a better comparision might be to look at the number of Russians killed in their sector of Germany during the comparable period. .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
