Do you think the war in Iraq would be over if we treated it like Germany/Japan in WW2?

Question

I was watching Howard Stern TV this morning and caught Michael Moore's appearance on it from a few days ago. During the interview, Moore complained that our military leaders are so incompetent that they cannot secure a single roadway in Iraq for the past 5 years, whereas we completely defeated both Germany and Japan within 2 years.

My immediate reaction was that it's people like him who are preventing us from fighting wars any more like we did in Japan and Germany!

Take a look a pictures of both countries AFTER our forces went in there. THEY ARE DESCIMATED. THEY ARE LEVELED. Not a single building remains intact. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead. It's total destruction and ruin. THAT'S how you fight a war! And THAT'S exactly what people like Moore won't allow us to do any more! We're now fighting wars the way they insisted that we do, so that no one gets hurt, and it clearly doesn't work.

Do you agree? Would Iraq cease to be an issue if Baghdad was levelled?

Answer 1

Micheal Moore and his ilk are bleeding morons and should be ignored. You are correct that clowns like him are the reason that our military commanders cannot do the job they were hired to do. If he and his half-witted cronies would approach the matter in an honest and rational manner they would have far less to say and make far more sense.

The same things happened in Vietnam and as a result of politically hog-tying the military thousands of our children were killed and wounded unnecessarily. When you fight, you fight to win and in a manner consistent with that goal. You do not wear kid gloves and you do not back away from confrontation. Any other means of fighting is pure stupidity and that is what is being forced on our military by the same jerks who call them incompetent.

I often wonder which side they really are on.

Answer 2

1. The conquest of Iraq was not a problem - we leveled what needed to be leveled and nothing else. That is the way military force is supposed to work. Controlled frightfulness.
2. Our problems started with our occupation - The military plan called for a heavy civil affairs program and using the existing Iraqi Army and Police as we did in Japan and Germany. With the help and advice of our allies in both cases. The British know a hell of a lot about occupying territory.
3. The military plan was rejected by the Secretary of Defense and the President. They insisted that no one who belonged to the Baath party belong to the new government. Now since joining the party was mandatory that took everyone who knew what the hell they were doing out of the picture.
4. You can read about the results of that policy in the news every day.

Answer 3

In WWII carpet bombing was the only method available.

I have a lot of letters my Dad wrote to his parents during and after. He was in the 80th ID leading the way for Patton. He was involved in the sweep towards Bastonge to help the 101. His Regiment (317th IR) was the 1st to arrive at Buchenwald. He went thru Dachua. During combat the letters would say "They had a lot of work for us" with no other descriptions of what was later found to be some damned vicious fighting.

He was in Austria when it ended. The letters changed. He would complain about bending over backwards to please the "bastards". There were groups still bent on fighting so there were insurgent attacks even then. I did some reading on it years ago. I think that it went on for 7 or more years. He got transferred 3 times so saw things in different regions without much of an attitude change about how WE were bending over to help.

The whole idea of this adventure was not to destroy the country but to try and get a working democracy as an example to the population of Syria, Iran, Egypt, Libya.

I told my daughter it would take 150 years of western type academic schooling, with open access to the worlds media and the heavy boot on the hate mongers to see real results.

I still think Iran is the real target. They are the biggest source of funding for all the weapons in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and have been for a long time.

Answer 4

Your analysis is off base with reality. If we fought with the same size forces like we had in WW2 we would be able to hold and rebuild every city and town and not allow the insurgents a place to rest and repair. Instead we have forces that are sufficient to destroy an enemy countries forces but too small to do the much more difficult work of rebuilding and educating the population. That would require trillions of dollars more than we have to spend. So Moore's point is why elect to invade a country when you don't have the resources to do it yourself especially when that particular country wasn't a threat to the US. Afghanistan was a required response on our part because Osama was and is still living there the jerk who started all this stupidity. Now we have two wars with way too thin a military to win either war. One war must be sacrificed for the other or we will have to massively expand the military to build the forces needed to win and that means a DRAFT there would simply be no other way to build such forces in time. This is why we need real allies so they can add there forces with ours instead we pissed them all off and we wonder why no one comes to our aid.

Answer 5

Yeah lets squash IRAQ to earth and kill all the people or make them homeless such that USA acheive a victory
Is that what u are suggesting?

What do the poor people of IRAQ do then? Would you allow them to stay in your country when all their home will be destructed?

I m sorry for being offensive but u need to think about the people who die everyday
And u cant compare IRAQ to germany or Japan because IRAQ is not the enemy(even though i m againt doing this even to an enemy)

Answer 6

"... it's people like him who are preventing us from fighting wars any more like we did in Japan and Germany!"

I wasn't aware that Michael Moore was in charge of U.S. military strategy.

Here's the deal: Supposedly, we're trying to help the Iraqi people defend themselves and establish stability in their country, even though it's not really working out that way. What good are we doing if we decimate their population?

This is very different from the WWII situation.

Answer 7

We can't treat Iraq like we treated Germany and Japan. In Germany and Japan there were organized armies for us to attack. In Iraq the terrorists hide among the citizens. So it's not the same thing.

Even if it were, treating Iraq like Germany and Japan wouldn't work. The Germans and Japanese didn't want to die, so they gave up when it looked like they were all going to get killed. The terrorists in Iraq are willing to all die for their cause, so they'll never give up, even if it looks like they're all going to get killed.

Answer 8

Yup. By the way, it took 3 years, 9 months, and 5 days for the US to win WW2.

Answer 9

You need to hit the history books. Yes thousands of people died in WWII, but that wasn't a good thing. Most of those deaths were senseless and were not in battle. And Michael Moore is an idiot and doesn't represent ****. He twists facts just like every other news media outlet or politician. This whole mess is a fiasco that is more like Vietnam than anything else.

Answer 10

You americans sould all be killed! all you care about is money! Leave the rest of the world alone! look at norway, sweden and the other north-european countries, they have the highest standard of living, 0% unemployment, and there is virtually no POLICE in norway. Just stop killing everyone.Ok but that doesn't matter, you'll be crushed by China in a few years anyway...