Why was it OK to occupy Germany and Japan for decades, yet we're supposed to be out of Iraq overnight?

Question

Democracy isn't built overnight.

Especially in a region of the world like Iraq that has never known freedom, it takes time to build a stable government, and bring together all the hostile factions.

Germany had the Nazi "werewolf" movement. There were several years of assassinations, sabotage, etc. And we still have troops in Germany.
And Germany didn't have an insurgency externally generated, by a group like Al Qaida, or neighboring states like Iran and Syria.

We also have troops in Bosnia, Kosovo and elsewhere.

Criticizing elements of the Iraq occupation I can understand, pressuring for more effectiveness, reducing waste, and revising toward a workable plan for success, THAT I can understand.

But those who talk about abandoning Iraq, and just leaving its citizens to be slaughtered, and leaving Iraq to become a hub of terrorism, that I can't understand.

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(RainerReza said: )
" 1) even Democrats who advocate withdrawal don't suggest that it can be done overnight ....and a strike force should be kept in the region, either in the Kurdish region or in one of the small Gulf states..."

ANSWER:

That is what I consider incredibly deceitful in the way Democrats criticize Iraq. They know we cannot pull out immediately, but their rhetoric, whether it is Hillary Clinton, Obama, Reid, Murtha, Feinstein or whoever, CONSTANTLY use the phrase "immediate withdrawal".
When called on it, they hum and haw, and offer a plan that equates to exactly what is already planned by Bush and other Republicans.
It's misrepresentation by Democrats.

2) "The comparison with the Nazi werewolf movement is groundless."
http://www.slate.com/id/2087768

Slate is partisan. Others disagree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf
Werewolves did less damage, but still lasted for years, and caused widespread fear in Germany.

As the Wikipedia link more balancedly explains, while Nazi Werewolves were fairly minimal in their destruction, they had a legend and reputation larger than their actual sabotage. And Americans, Russians and French occupiers in Germany all shot suspected Werewolves on the spot, to prevent spread of the movement.

Liberal sites like Slate all focus on whether Nazi Werewolves were EQUALLY STRONG as the Iraq insurgency. But they ignore or evade the true point, that there was resistance in post-war Germany, and that it lasted 3 or 4 years, and "possibly as late as 1949 or 1950". A LIFE magazine article from 1946 asked: "Are we losing the peace in Germany?"

3) "Third: The logic for going home is that this country has never had the will to do all that needs to be done in order to secure Iraq...."

( ANSWER: )
I admit that under Rumsfeld that was true. But with the "troop surge", Anbar province (an area that had previously been resigned to insurgents) has now been cleared and secured, and progress continues.

It deeply concerns me that Democrats refuse to support our military, even when progress is finally being made.

While it bothers me that the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds are reluctant to cooperate and form a strong all-inclusive government, that doesn't overrride the fact that if we leave, it'll be a bloodbath, and U.S. troops will end up going right back in, in two years, to clean up an even bigger mess.
If we leave before the Iraqis get it together, Iraq will become a hub of terrorism, that will spread to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and eventually Europe and the U.S.

Answer 1

Not many of us that recall the time before fast food, Interstate Highways, cell phones, IM, etc etc.

I have many letters my Dad wrote to his parenst during WWII. He was complaining to them about the bending over backwards to the Germans. He realized 20 years later why it was done, but not then. Your right it takes time to get back on your feet.

US Revolution: 1775-1783
Current Constitution Completed 9/17/1787
1st Us President: 1789
14 years from the first shots to the 1st President. Probably had a higher literacy rate then than Iraq now.

Just as a test ask someone how long it took took replace the Articles of Confederation with today's US Constitution.

Very few know that the concept of "separation of Church and State" came from a letter written by President Jefferson in 1804 to avoid breaking the establishment clause. Using the phrase "a wall of separation" created an issue he had no intent to create.

Long version of very many passing opinion instead of knowing History and dealing with reality. God I love the "American Idol" generation. They be so highly edgeimicated.

Answer 2

First off, even Democrats who advocate withdrawal don't suggest that it can be done overnight and all of the leading candidates say that a strike force should be kept in the region, either in the Kurdish region or in one of the small Gulf states, in order to maintain a strike force that can deal with crises.

Second: The comparison with the Nazi werewolf movement is groundless. Check out this article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2087768/
which lays out how the German resistance was nothing--NOTHING--compared with what is going on in Iraq.

Third: The logic for going home is that this country has never had the will to do all that needs to be done in order to secure Iraq. According to the counter-insurgency manual written by General David Petraeus--the guy who Bush has put in charge of the surge--pacifying a country the size of Iraq would require an occupying force of army and police officers ranging in size from 535,000 to 670,000. (Source: The Economist, "The President's Last Throw," Jan. 11, 2007). At its height, American troope levels didn't even get to half that level, and the armed forces are already stretched, with troops being pushed to do more combat rotations than they're supposed to do. If you want to do this right, you need to implement a draft in order to boost up troop levels and spend a phenomenal amount of money on top of the mountain of cash (i.e., debt) that we have thrown at the problem so far. No major politician supporting the war--not Bush, not McCain, nobody--has called for a draft and an escalation of troops to the levels needed for success. So the push for withdrawal is very much based on the idea that if you can't do something right, then don't do it. This strategy is clearly not working and the level of violence and resistance is not even remotely comparable to Germany, Japan, Bosnia, or Kosovo. Now that you mention Kosovo: When NATO forces did go in to Kosovo, they used the Petraeus ratio of 20-25 security force members to every 1,000 civilians. Maybe that had something to do with the success of the operation...?

Answer 3

There is no way to compare either the war with japan or Germany to this fiasco in Iraq. Both Germany and Japan had standing armies, that had enough war and signed a surrender, and what you call "insurgencies" were almost non-existant. With the situation in Iraq, there are no army or iraqi officials to sign any surrender, and we are basically fight a bunch of rag-tag civilians who resent our illegal invasion or their country. A little history lesson might be in order here, during the second world war, when Germany invaded some of the other nations, the civilians in those countries that resented the occupation, fought back with any means possible, much the same as what is happening in Iraq, only difference is, during those years, we called them "freedom fighters, and patriots" because they were fighting against the aggressor, Germany. Today we label them as "terrorist, and insurgents" because they are fighting against the aaggressors, which is the United States. Same reason, different names. These so called insurgents and terrorist are the same people we tried to help and applauded their efforts during the second world war,,, think about it. JMN817: Sorry to correct you, but, when you say we never occupied either Japan or Germany for as long as we've been in Iraq, please think this over, as we have had troops in both countries ever since the war was over, thats over 60 years, and they're stil there.

Answer 4

Part of the reason is a combination of Impatience on the part of today's In-a-Hurry citizens and the anti-American media that cannot bring itself to support anything the US does.

We have soldiers in South Korea since 1950 but nobody's calling for them to sh*t or get off the pot. SK is already an independent democracy with a strong economy yet we still have ten thousand troops deployed there.

Understand, a victory in Iraq will make the region more stable and even benefit all of the world. But the media can't stand the minor side effect that Bush will look good, Republicans can claim the victory and worst of all, Europe would have to admit America was right! The Liberals would rather plant IEDs themselves than risk that!

Answer 5

In my HUMBLE opinion, it is because it is an unpopular war. Plain and simple. Many have bought into the democratic line that this is Bushes war, that Iraq wasn't responsible for 9-11, which indirectly, I don't think it was, however it was a bed of unrest and Sadam was not the ruler for that country.He did need to be removed as ruler and a democratic system needed to be put in place. Many in the US seem to have the 'fast food' mentality that this war should have been done already. They believe that the war should have been fought, and the new country in place in less the two years time. It doesn't work that way. We are a microwave society here in America, and when the rest of the world doesn't move as fast as we believe it should ... well, we should just pull out and abandon it. It's not worth the risk. Imagine if you will, if we had thought that after WW2? Germany would have been ripe for the picking.. and nowhere near what it is today...So do we leave Iraq? Leave it open for Iran, or Palastine? Those pro Muslim countries themselves with their own internal and external fighting going on?

Yes, we need a more effective way to succeed, a workable plan for success for the people there in Iraq. For THEIR sake, not ours. It is for them... leaving them? Abandoning them? That is signing their death warrents. We might as well bomb the country ourselves on the way out, because that is the same end result.

Just a little rebuttal to the comment that Germany and Japan were not occupied... Someone needs to restudy their history. Germany was a mess after the war, the roads torn up, there was no industry to speak of, the financial situation was nonexistant, Germany itself had no goverment to run the country, no men to do so as most had either left the country to escape the Nazi's or they served in the Nazi army therefore they were... not eligible to serve. The country was divided into zones by the Russians, British, Americans, and the French.... each with their own service personel occupying that section. Food had to be imported for basic survival...
It was basically the same in occupied Japan. Starvation, importing food, the country couldn't provide even half of what it needed, the rebuilding of roads, buildings... ects.
the return of teachers, doctors, ect that fled before and during the war from Germany... (same as Iraq btw, many of the educated left the country)
Iraq needs the same... guidence and leadership that those countrie recieved when they were in chaos. We (the world as a whole) need to give them that direction.

Answer 6

I'd say that there is a different attitude, as a whole, with people now as opposed to 60 years ago. We have become a people of instant gratification. If we don't get the results we are looking for immediately then we want nothing to do with it.

Also, you have to remember that back after WWII, when we started out occupation of Germany it took days for people to get info about what was happening on another continent. There wasn't a CNN or Fox News, etc., that could get the news out immediately after it happened. And, contrary to what some people believe now, the news was produced and distributed by the government. The Armed Forces decided what the public was going to see and hear not a cable news channel or even a major TV network.

I also think that the reasons for going to war, in the first place, have created the opinions that differ from back after WWII. During WWII we basically fought to protect our allies, now we fight and occupy other countries more for our own interests. (i.e., oil).

Finally, I think the opinion of the people to want out of Iraq is forged on the fact that we, the people, were lied to about what we were expecting to find and the success of the occupation has been. We have been told that things have been going well and that we were going to find all these weapons of mass destruction, etc. Well, things aren't going that well and we never did find any of those weapons that Hussein supposedly had hidden all over the place. It's also the fact that we have a president who was in bed, has been in bed, and we all know will continue to be in bed, with all these oil companies. We are having our soldiers continuing to be killed for the profits of money hungry oil companies.

I'm sure there are many more reasons for this but I hope my answer has given you more ideas!

Answer 7

Because Germany and Japan were totally conquered and destroyed by massive military weaponry and their power to resist was defeated by brute strength. These were not "political" wars, these were wars of clear powerful aggressors defeated by those who were attacked and, initially, even weaker than their attackers.

Iraq was a sovereign country attacked without provocation by the United States superpower, and since we are not willing to slaughter the Iraqis in the same way we did the Germans and Japanese, the war becomes "political" in the sense of world opinion of our actions (mostly entirely negative) and of a majority of the US population against the war (quite the opposite of WW II).

Thus, given that there is no popular or global support for the war, and given our dubious reasons for initiating it, and given that we cannot morally justify annihilating the Iraqi population, and given that the Iraqis mostly hate us. the war is unwinnable, basically senseless and possibly immoral.

Leaving is really the only alternative that makes any sense IN THE CONTEXT of present day history, domestic political reality and almost universal global disapproval.

In short, Iraq was probably the biggest military blunder since Vietnam. Just as there was no "bloodbath" after North Vietnam took over, and just as there was no massive conquest of Asia by communism, the repercussions of an American pullout in Iraq are exaggerations. Surely the Iraqis will not suffer any more than they are under us.

Democracy is not to be imposed on those who do not want it. That is called imperialism and is the usual way empires destroy themselves.

Answer 8

Because people care about results. People care about hearing what they want, and getting it NOW. Even if we took the misguided step of just up and leaving, that'd take a while. It's not like there can be a day where all the troops come out of wherever they are, pile on helicopters and go home. For one thing, it'd be a lot of helicopters.

Answer 9

I have been making this exact argument for years. Lets not forget that we are still technically at war in Korea, well over 50 years later. Also recall what happened when we just abandoned a government that we supported, as we withdrew, the opposition (mainly supported by outside forces) eroded the government's support.

Answer 10

We didn't "occupy" Germany or Japan.....we left a few bases in those places but those countries were immediately able to take over for themselves. Iraq is a whole other set of circumstances, mainly we brought freedom (lol) to religious extremists, we also turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding center and Bush didn't have no stinking plan.