Cnynddwllr,
re:"Maybe it's because Germany and Japan were exhausted by years of bloody war where millions of their countrymen were killed."
And the losses suffered by the Iraqis under Saddam was not exhausting? Just how many millions does it take to be exhausting? Out of a population of around 20 million, roughly 2 million Iraqis have died prematurely under Saddam - and hundreds of thousands made homeless refugees.
re: "Maybe it's because of the respective cultures and majority religions of the countries."
Japan? Japan is Shinto, up to the end of the Second World War, the Japanese were told that the Emperor was God.
re: "Maybe it's because there was a sense in Germany and Japan that they brought it on themselves with their own attacks and aggression."
Are you kidding? Iraq has attacked 2 of its 3 Arab neighbors, and attacked 1 of the two non Arab countries bordering it - in the 30 years. Attacks of aggression in each case!
Do you consider that the United States in Vietnam was an Army of Occupation? I doubt that even the Vietnamese believe that.
Iraq and the Middle East, is IMO much like Europe of the late 20's and early 30's - in Europe there were two competing ideologies Communism and Fascism (both unacceptable and both despised western democracies). In the Middle East its militant Islam and the Baathists (and as we have seen in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, neither are acceptable either, and both hate western democracies). In the midst of this the United States is trying to offer Democracy as an alternative, by actively supporting and fostering it. Would Europe have been different if the U.S. took actions to prevent fascist takeovers in Europe (support of democratic parties or economic aid)?
Leave them alone and they'll fight it out? Maybe eventually, but it probably wouldn't stop attacks against the west. Do you honestly think if al Qeada, Iraq were to take control of Iraq (or take control of the Sunni Provinces), that attacks against the west will stop? Baathist and Islamic Militant won't mix? No more than Nazi and Communist. Hitler was allied with the Soviets and jointly invaded Poland - only to invade the Soviet Union after he thought that the European Democracies were finished (I'd like to point out that up to the day the Germans invaded the USSR, the Soviets and U.S. Communist Party was opposed to U.S. support of Britain).
Did Saddam and bin Laden cooperate with each other? Of course.
Did they cooperate in the 9-11 attack? There is no concrete proof of that.
But both decided that the USA was a greater evil than each other (and suspended any attacks against each other) - and that was during the Clinton Administration (maybe Bush 41). And Richard Clarke maintains that Iraqis and al Qeada were cooperating with each other in chemical weapons technology, in the Sudan. |
