Re: Please shutup about the US bringing democracy to other countries
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Don't get me wrong, America has screwed up in Iraq. But Gearge Bush was right when he said it wasn't going to be easy. Where he screwed up was that he tried to take the easier route anyways because of the upcoming re-election campaign.
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Probably close, but I think the biggest mistake was not acknowledging up-front that this could take 10+ years. The entire dynamic of that situation would be different if our attitude was; "we'll be there until it's fixed". The mentality of "we're not leaving until we win," has a tendency to resolve things, both there and at home in our decision to go in the first place.
But it's that resolve going in that was a little weak or ill-defined. I think the real checkmate move at the end of WWII with Japan, wasn't so much dropping the two bombs. I think it had more to do with the U.S. telling them we wouldn't accept anything but unconditional surrender. They basically had a choice: surrender to the U.S. or we're going to support a Russian invasion, and then you can surrender to them. Pick your posion, but we're going to win. Period.
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