Quote:
Originally Posted by Timberwoof
Germany did welcome the Allied soldiers, and Germany did have a fairly long though periodically interrupted tradition of a liberal-democratic[1] order of society. Although there were Catholic and Protestant Germans, they hadn't fought over that issue since the Thirty Years War. Germans have a pretty strong work ethic: in 1949, Konrad Adenauer declared a currency reform and launched the Economic Miracle. So I deny that it took years of US military involvement in Germany after the war to get the society and economy going again. And I deny that the situations of Germany and Iraq are similar enough that you can draw any conclusions about one from the other.
Somebody else who knows more about Japan than I do will have to write the post about how the comparison fails with that country as well.
[1] by which I do not mean damn-Liberal or Democrat
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Absolutely. And I didn't mean to say that the situation in post-war Germany was at all similar to post-war(?) Iraq. All I was saying is that wars don't happen, and resolution doesn't occur, overnight, and I think some people are expecting that.
I think we got spoiled by Gulf War I, since it started and ended in no time at all.