Quote Originally Posted by The12lber
Sorry, but you are wrong. All the atomic bombs did is this - destroy a lot of building and lives. It didn't destroy anything else. Not the government and not stability within the nation. There wasn't a guerilla war against our occupying troops or sectarian violence within the nation. There was nothing about the situation "broken" in the same sense Iraq is broke or any sense at all really. The only thing broken in Japan in 1946 was the peopple's pride. If you're going to talk about history at least get the basics down.
WTF??? 200,000 citizens isn't broken? What.. 3,000 people died in the world trade center bombings and we dropped 2 NUCLEAR BOMBS on men, women and children not to mention the environmental implications of nuclear weapons. You've got to be ****ing kidding me.. I'm sorry, and not that my opinion matters but you just lost all credibility on this subject.

Quote Originally Posted by BanginJimmy
we still have bases in Japan and we spent hundreds of billions of dollars there in the late 40's thorugh the end of the 50's. In todays terms that would have been well into the trillions.

Vietnam and Iraq have several things in common.
1. Interference from an enemy of the US. In Viet-Nam it was the Chinese and Russians. In Iraq it is the Iranians and foreign fighters.

2. Politics getting in the way of the military. Anytime you get politicians involved in military operations you only get bad things happening. Iraq is a glaring example of that. If the military was able to do their job without any political intervention we could get this job done.

3. Media embedded with military units. It became popular in Viet-Nam with the body counts and such, and it is happening again now. This only works to get in the way of the military units and to vilinize them.

1. A good portion of Iranians actually adore American Culture and completely respect it. The current administration would like you to believe Iran hates us when that is far from the truth, as I said in the other thread Iranian soldiers fought alongside ours in Afghanistan after 9/11..

2. The military is run by the government and the president is Commander and Chief.. kind of hard to take the politics out of that.

3. I agree here..soldiers should be able to do their job without worry of the media.

Quote Originally Posted by Motivation
If we pull out all of the troups in Iraq at once, the soldiers that have lost their life in the war (for what they believe in, THEY joined for a reason, THEY knew what was going on, THEY thought it was worth risking there lives for), what did they die for? It would all be in vain imo... I agree, the war has turned into something different that the reason it started... But if we pull out now we could be making things worse. I know it's a saying every one has seen but, "Fight them there, or fight them here."
But everyone's view is going to be different. That's what makes this world.
The war was in vain from the start. You are fighting a political war against a religious army. This doesn't end with just a few battles, something of this magnitude requires diplomacy not military force.