Shooter helpfully describes military occupation as:

trying to introduce a better way of life

I think that we can all agree that trying to introduce a better way of life is a noble goal so lets check the toolkit of a typical miltary unit and see how that works.

Rifles.....check.

Humvees.....check.

Laser guided rockets....check.

Radios to call in air support.....check.

Hmmm. It would appear that we are fully prepared to introduce a better way of life if that is conveniently redefined to include no life at all. Glad I was able to clear that up.

Careful with your S&M toys, someone could get hurt.

Well put, Paul Dirks.

IIRC, that was the original motivation of the Borg as they sought to assimilate Earth.

Shooter is of the Borg. This explains much.

and we'll realized that over generations, most of the butchery has been committed by death squads trained and supplied by the US military/CIA or US proxies. Nearly each time a democratically elected head of state was deposed by a military junta, it was at the instigation of the US, and the same is often true in south America. One of the most feudal, medieval, undemocratic and oppressive regimes in the world, the Saudi royal family is supported and kept in power by the US government. We go around the world and see how US imperial intervention in foreign nations affairs have brought misery and oppression to those nations.

This American excercise in international American militarism seems more and more alike what Americans were doing to Vietnam in last century.

Then too it also picks up on similar American militarism conduct as demonstrated in Philippines following American occupation of Philippines after Americans defeated Spain in Spanish-American War.

It is going to get much worse for Iraq likely enough.

American militarism in Iraq does indeed spill over and across much of West Asia. So Iraq will get blunt force measures and plenty of kill from Iraqs air above as Americans try to lever American air dominance over Iraq into tangible and trackable subjugation of Iraqi resistance. Into intimidation of Iran. Into bringing fear of Americans into Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When one reads how American troops in Philippines would enter villages where Filipinos would greet them as friends and then Americans would proceed to massacre same Filipinos for no reason other than to follow American Filipino pacification policies one should understand Iraqis stand little better today than those Filipinos did then.

A side effect of what Americans militarism unleashed against Filipinos was that Imperial Japan picked up these American ideas and tactics of gross civilian abuse and death dealing which came to fore later in 1930's and during WW2. Americans of course had learned much of this conduct in the American genocide of Native Americans during 18th and 19th centuries.

Israel today is practicing similar tactics against Arab Palestine in pursuit of the illegal,unethical and immoral desires and intents Israeli warmongers possess for Arab Palestine being expunged. Americans going along with this easily enough as WashingtonDC practices and preferences readily reveal.

Vietnam got a full dose of American air war doctrine and it is very likely Iraq is going to be getting American air war conduct of the bluntest kind as well.

Just how lopsided all this truly is fully displayed with this USAF attack on/near Iraqi hospital. If an American hospital here in any US city were attacked by Iraqis in similar fashion( of course the Iraqis never had nor have now such air force attack capability inside US mainland ) Americans would be even now sending in cruise missiles (atomic tipped?) out of outrage and anger in revenge for bastard Iraqis doing such a thing.

This Iraq Occupation is going to get worse. For Iraqis. For Americans.

Question then being do Americans run out of treasure or Iraqis to kill off first?

American subjugation of Iraq being the game and taking out Iraqi resistance the aim does orbit around American money to do it and American deathdealing on Iraqis.

Morality and ethics never having had much to do with this American Iraq Debacle.

Dick Cheney The War Criminal still suggesting it will be seen as good and rightful in history books to come.

I do think President Obama should appoint this same American warmonger Dick Cheney as new American Ambassador to Iraq in early 2009. Send Richard Cheney to Iraq to stay in Baghdad American Embassy Citadel. Give him an upclose and real taste and smell of the horror he so frequently lies about.

america's problems are much more serious, incurable most likely. you're just too dim, too ignorant, too arrogant to figure the world out. so you'll keep butting your collective head against reality, until finally the head breaks. it will, reality always has the last word.

al loomis

Al, what country are you commenting from? How I wish someone with your kind of intelligence and character would come here to guide us in the US. Are you available?

Shooter helpfully describes military occupation as:
trying to introduce a better way of life
I think that we can all agree that trying to introduce a better way of life is a noble goal so lets check the toolkit of a typical miltary unit and see how that works.

I notice that neither you nor Glenn propose a viable alternative to quelling civil war, state sponsored genocide, or rule by mass murder. Just moral fastidiousness about practical efforts to stop participants from killing themselves and others. Like it or not that translates into benign neglect, or rather, permission for the regimes mentioned above to continue their murderous ways. How moral is that?

Why not be proactive for a change, and promote the real agenda you foster, that such people should continue killing their own without our interference? It would serve the larger purpose of advocating that we stop our meddling, and focus on the combatants. If nothing else, it let's Darwinism do it's stuff.

I understand that being forthright about such things negates the ability to jump on the moral high-horse, but it's certainly more honest. Try it, you might like it.