Quote Originally Posted by Wallace View Post
Not sure about your comment Surasak. Europe spent most of the 19th and 20th centuries in one war or another and has developed quite well out of it.
The United States has been constantly at war with someone more or less since the first settlers arrived there.

However, if you mean that when your own country suffers the effects of war, then I agree. If you get bombed every time you build something decent, it sort of puts you off.
What I meant was this: Europe for all practical purposes was destroyed during WWII. America was untouched due to isolation.

Now, we helped rebuild Europe...but I don't think it was out of kindness or generosity. It was more of a long-sighted notion that to keep Stalin in check we needed to get Europe up and running as quick as possible and to try to avoid the economic conditions which lead to the war in the first place. People who were working, rebuilding, etc. didn't have time to sympathize with communists and it was the influx of capital (and American troops) that kept Western Europe free from communism. If we had simply ignored Europe and pulled our troops back home all of Europe would have fallen to the Soviets. The same with Japan and Asia.

The mistake in Iraq is that we destroyed the government from the top down to the bottom, destroyed the infrastructure, and put most Iraqis out of work. We have done little to nothing to rebuild Iraq and get people working again. People who are pissed off and have no money are very likely to get angry at the occupation and the occupation-leaning government and instead sympathize with the insurgents.

The issue with Iraq is that it is a corporate war....a war to secure resources and a war to secure and loot the U.S. Treasury in order to feed the shareholders of the companies 'rebuilding' Iraq. Thus, the U.S. really doesn't give a shit about the plight of the Iraqis.