[jwalsh07]

Of course, if you have read any history, which Bush hasn't, you will have noticed that people do not like being occupied by force. They don't like having their cities bombed. It galls them. It can, under certain circumstances (such as any circumstances) make them hostile.

I've read some history, especially WW2 history because my father and ten of my Uncles participated. We firebombed the crap out of Germany. We dropped nukes on Japan. I imagine that galled the Germans and the Japanese but the evidence is in there, killing them in great numbers and occupying their countries resulted in two stable democracies with one being a pretty good ally of those who did the killing and galling.

Now what?

[dirtboy]

Great callout on the writer's absurdity. But numbnuts like him tend to prefer hyperbole over history.

[AmishDude]

It should also be noted that Japan had no history of democracy and a decidedly non-Western majority religion based in part on worship of the Emperor.

Getting democracy there must have looked to be impossible in 1945. How, oh how, did we manage it?

[Steel Wolf]

We firebombed the crap out of Germany. We dropped nukes on Japan. I imagine that galled the Germans and the Japanese but the evidence is in there, killing them in great numbers and occupying their countries resulted in two stable democracies with one being a pretty good ally of those who did the killing and galling.

Another WWII reference. Do you see the main difference between our defeat of the Axis powers and our defeat of Iraq, the respective occupations, and the post war results?

[Mr Rogers]

Thanks for your post - saved me typing time. Have a good Sunday!

[af_vet_rr]

We dropped nukes on Japan. I imagine that galled the Germans and the Japanese but the evidence is in there, killing them in great numbers and occupying their countries resulted in two stable democracies with one being a pretty good ally of those who did the killing and galling.

They also had cultures that worked to our advantage. Our fight, for the most part, was with their governments - once their leaders were removed from power, one way or another, that was it for them.

On the other hand, the Vietnams, Iraqs, Afghanistans, etc., while they have leaders (or had leaders I guess you'd say), more importantly, they were/are fighting for an idealogy.

Idealogies can't simply be defeated because we killed X number of fighters. History has proven this for 1000s of years.

That's one thing I don't think this administration has really thought out - It's one thing when we invaded Iraq, and we had a public face - Saddam - it's another when we remove him, and we find out there are people who will then fight for two different ideologies - Shiites/Sunni's (with the Kurds caught in between).

People forget that if Saddam hadn't maintained an iron fist, Iraq would have broken up into civil war years and years ago - it's pretty clear that when Britain and France were drawing up maps after the Ottoman Empire was brought down, that they didn't consider religious differences.

What we have done is stepped into a centuries-old fight between idealogies in the Middle East.

[RobbyS]

If this guy had read about the Jewish wars, he would know that the Romans did a darned good job of making the Jews eat dirt. Eventually the Jews gave up any political ambitions and became quite pacific members of the empire.