<<Has everyone forgotten Germany in 1945?
Japan in 1946?
The Old South in 1865?>>
First, surely you can guess that I, at least, have not "forgotten" Germany 1945, Japan, 1946 or "the Old South in 1865." WWII was in many ways an extension of WWI, or of the "peace" resulting from WWI. The way the US conducted the peace coming out of WWII was surely one of our finer, if not our finest, hours. Nevermind motives and the shadow of the Cold War--the acts of helping to rebuild Japan and Germany as well as those countries allied with us were exemplary. Reconstruction after the Civil War was another matter--it would take me way too far afield to discuss that here. Suffice it to say that I definitely do NOT consider it to a positive, especially after the election of 1876, but even before then. The history of that time has been shrouded in all sorts of contradictory bafflegab and gobbledigook which has only begun to be really uncovered over the past 30 or 40 years by historians of the "reconstructed" south.
<<I really take offense to statements like "the war was the easy part". Do you really think the people who supported this action are so ignorant and naive to believe rebuilding will be easy? That there will be no long term scars?>>
Perhaps, you--Tom K--have avoided the widespread declarations of "victory" that one hears in the popular press. You're a pretty bright guy--I mean that--and perhaps you have not made statements like "Now that President Bush has been proven right about Iraq, Congress should pass his domestic legislation, becaue he is right in that too" (sorry, don't have a cite for that, but a conservative columnist wrote that last week--it may have been Cal Thomas, but I can't swear to it). One hears comments like this all the time. One hears "Let's go onto Syria as long as we're in the neighborhood" as though, well, Iraq is effectively done with, let's move on, let's take care of all the bad guys. There is a cavalier attitude, too, to the destruction of Iraqi cultural heritage and the everyday life of Iraqis--the failure to guard the museums, the banks, the various records offices is a manifestation of this. You can say, well, the US can't be responsible for all the looting that goes on in a war-charged atmosphere, and you would be right in that. But there ought to have been plans in place for at least protecting some of these sites. This should have been as great a priority as protecting the Ministry of Oil. It obviously wasn't. You will say, you're just carping, you have to find something wrong, you ignore everything that went right, the relatively small number of people killed in this action. I don't ignore that. Plenty of ink has been written about that. It was a good thing, despite several errors which were inevitable given the nature of the action. But that too is part of the point--the nature of war is such that unintended destruction, deaths and other consequences take place.
But this admin and its supporters has consistently downplayed both negative consequences and the difficulties of reconstruction in pursuing this and previous actions. The admin promised all sorts of aid to Afghanistan that was never delivered. You might say, well, we can't be responsible for that country which sheltered the people who attacked us. But the admin also promised, in the weeks after 9/11, all sorts of aid to NYC which was only partly delivered, and then only after repeated pleas from NYC and NY govt officials. I guess that isn't our business either. The record of the admin in actually delivered promised aid has not been good thus far.
I have to go right now. More later.
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