Not just that, but force ‘hope and change’ on them after.
Japan and Germany were not allowed to just keep on keepin’ on. They did what we ‘let’ them do. If we did the same with one whole generation growing up under a fully even partially ‘westernized’ Iraq, those kids would have grown into adults wanting no part of Pighammed and Co. and would then have had a fighting chance to make something of it.
Instead, we killed Saddam, let them choose worse as a PC gesture, started the “Islamic Spring” and just don’t get why it all went to hell.
Brilliant....
To our man and women killed and maimed, along with their families...not that it matters much....but I’m sorry.
Ah, but it does matter. Sure this is an "anonymous" forum. But I have a suspicion that what you say here is what you say to people in your real world daily life. And I would bet there are plenty of out there and people who read this forum who will say to themselves "Thank you Norm". Not that I am speaking for them. Just speaking for me.
The reason they knuckled under was because we killed millions of their fighting men and millions of their civilians. Weirdly enough, our victory over the Taliban was too quick - too antiseptic. Most of the Pashtuns' fighting age males are still alive. The lesson of the Afghan campaign is that you haven't defeated the enemy until you have cowed them into submission - by killing a significant percentage of their fighters. For a country the size of Afghanistan that number is at least 500K. We've done less than 100K. What Bush needed to hammer home, in the initial euphoria of the Taliban's initial defeats, was that guerrilla war is the type of war where casualties are relatively light, but they go on for a long time, because this type of war helps preserve the enemy's fighting strength. The reason the Germans and the Japanese did not have the option of a guerrilla war was because their manpower was exhausted, and their civilians had been pushed to the brink in terms of family members and friends killed in combat and were on the brink of starvation. Japan and Germany lost 5% and 10% of their populations in WW2. The equivalent Afghan casualty count would be 1.5m or 3m dead.
I think you make excellent points. Would add that this "Islamic Spring" didn't start in 2010-2011. It started in 1979 with Khomeini and Iran. Carter and Brzezinski were in charge.