Germany had a long tradition of democracy & western culture. Totally apples to oranges compared to the ME.
I think we're getting to the basic disagreement these things always boil down to:
Is war strictly military or is it political.
I think counterinsurgency wars are won or lost politically, not on any battlefield.
Well Japan is a good candidate in that regard.
An interesting read on Cheney's exact qualifications for making sound military judgments base on knowledgable people's recommendations. I recommend you read the entire article.
Troop Levels in Stability Operations: What We Don't Know | World | AlterNet
Troops Levels and Iraq
Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki set off a firestorm when he told the Senate Armed Services committee before the invasion that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to stabilize Iraq, a figure that began to approach 20 troops per 1,000 of the Iraqi population, the ratio that academics conventionally, if not universally, cite as necessary for successful stability operations. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called this estimate "far off the mark," as did Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who put the figure closer to 100,000 troops total for Iraq. As the war drags on, requiring orders of magnitude greater time, blood, and treasure than estimated by U.S. leadership, troop figures have become the foremost issue debated at all levels.
Well Japan is a good candidate in that regard. By the way, it took 4 years for Germany to become a democracy. We did it in 2 in Iraq.
Better but still not the same. Japan was a strong central government culture patterned very much on western societies.
Iraq & Afghanistan are not.
Shinseki was wrong, it only took 50,000 and those only got added late in the war.
I think we're getting to the basic disagreement these things always boil down to:
Is war strictly military or is it political.
I think counterinsurgency wars are won or lost politically, not on any battlefield.
Germany was a republic for many years b4 WWII
No, not the same. Did you require them to be the same in order to compare them? They are similar in some respects and different in others. We still managed to bring a stable democracy to Iraq and that's the point.
He was not wrong if you remember the city was immediately looted along with all of the surrounding unguarded weapons bunkers..containing well documented weapons and munitions which were then turned on our troops by the pissed off Iraqies...He was right in every aspect.
We haven't left Iraq yet! :lol:
That's MY point.:lol:
Aw, so what. The whole city got looted. 300,000 extra troops wouldn't have prevented that. Evidently, it is a part of Middle Eastern culture to loot. There were weapons caches everywhere, and they certainly didn't get moved during looting. We dealt with the situation. It does not mean Shinseki was correct.
Aw, so what. The whole city got looted. 300,000 extra troops wouldn't have prevented that. Evidently, it is a part of Middle Eastern culture to loot. There were weapons caches everywhere, and they certainly didn't get moved during looting. We dealt with the situation. It does not mean Shinseki was correct.
Ok, we're going in circles. :lol: We haven't left Germany or Japan yet!
That's MY counterpoint!
Reprint from an edit I said above:
I'd bet that within one year of us leaving...Iraq will be back in civil war.
I hope I'm wrong but fear I'm right. (Iraqi's are savages!....call me bigoted or whatever...but they love to kill eachother & are good at it!)
You are wrong those bunkers that surrounded Baghdad and elsewhere were immediately looted and they were taking semi tractor trailer loads of high explosives out of there as our soldiers had to stand there a watch it happen.
Are you telling me Cheney and his tiny group of planners couldn't have predicted that?
This was happening as Rumsfeld was telling our troops that the liberated Iraqies would be raining them with flowers...but it turned out that those very high explosives were use to rain IED's down upon our troops.
That is a real posibility. What can we do to help minimize that? Help as we can to get reconciliation to happen between the communities.
That's an excellent question & it involves nation building over there....& I'm not a fan of nation building.
I say......it's their country & let the chips fall where they will....We have our own problems!
I'm a big fan of nation building. We need to ensure that the investment in blood and treasure is not wasted.
I simply disagree with the concept of throwing good money after bad. It doesn't work.
What bad money? We build a new democracy! That does not happen every decade. What we have accomplished is a huge success!
If Iraq is still stable a year after we leave.....I'll say you're right. Right now ....we are still occupiers over there. We are keeping the lid on.
Not so much. The Iraqi Army and Police are in the lead. We trained them well. We trained them to train themselves. That is a huge success.
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