<Are Europe and Japan free? Really Jacob, you're just being silly.>
The apologists of imperialism always bring up the examples of Japan and W. Germany. Problem is, these are exceptions to the general rule, and exceptions that have little relevance for Iraq, or for any other poor nation we are likely to conquer. Since 1895, how many nations has the U.S. sent soldiers into? And how many have, as a result, become prosperous democracies like Japan and Germany? It's a short list, very short.
A closer analogy to Iraq, no matter what parameters you look at, would be Afghanistan (result: chaos), or Kuwait (result: tyranny), or any one of 50 3d-world despots as bad as Saddam, who we have put in power all over the globe, in the last 105 years. "Soulless despotism" is an excellent description of Marcos, Somoza, the Shah, Allende, the Emir of Kuwait, and on and on and on. They are the general rule of what our army, CIA, and State Dept. create. |
