On a different, but related topic - the “nation building” failure in Iraq - why do you think we were successful at it in Japan, which also had a far different world view of human life, as well as a different religion than us - yet we succeeded? While in Iraq, we spent billions on infrastructure and working with the Iraqi people to move their government toward a more democratic nation, yet failed?
In both cases, Iraq and Japan’s infrastructure, industry and government were destroyed by the war’s end, yet Japan recovered while Iraq didn’t. Was it because we didn’t have a realistic post-war plan, and we didn’t properly prepare for security and governance of Iraq? MacArthur was literally a military dictator over Japan for several years and I can’t imagine him allowing the looting and pillaging that followed Saddam’s fall in Iraq to occur in Japan.
Or, was it simply because or Islam? Is Islam, as it exists in Iraq just too much of a barrier? Also, Japan had an industrial establishment prior to the war that wasn’t based on just one resource, as in Iraq’s is with oil. Just wondering what your thoughts would be on this.
The defeat of Iraq utterly pales in comparison to the absolute devastation we visited on Japan. Japan was bombed into starving rubble, capped off with two nukes just to put a fine point on it.
We rolled in and basically dictated the way they would live.... and everyone knew we had teeth.
In Iraq, the brilliance of maneuver warfare and scrupulously avoiding civilian casualties left most Iraqis not really feeling “defeated”.
Immediately after the defeat, we allowed Iraqis to walk around armed,,openly.
Japan and Iraq were defeated VERY differently.
Well, I think the industrious nature of the Japanese can’t be discounted. While we can second guess what we did in Iraq, ultimately it depends on the Iraqi people and whether they want a stable unified government there.
I think the final Bush formula was rather decent. We’ve also have to recall that his plan called for leaving troops in Iraq so things could stabilize more, and there would be a better chance of success.
Obama knew better, so he pulled everyone out.
Then you’ve got idiots like McCain/Graham that saw to it that “our allies” in Al Qaeda got funding and guns. All of a sudden you have a well armed and well funded ISIS on your hands.
So what we wind up doing is second guessing ourselves while McCain and Graham go off shoot their mouths off on other international issues.
It’s a multi-headed beast the Iraqi question. Differing factions of Islam figure in too. It’s more of a mess now that it had to be. Some on our side, and some on the Left really screwed this up post Bush IMO.