Not 1 US Soldier Died in Hostile Action While Occupying Japan: Why?

[tmckay2]

unfortunately comparing japan to islamic extremists isn't practical. sure, theyre both "extreme" by western standards, but thats about it. anyone ever have significant dealings with asian nationals? very interesting society over there. china, korea and japan really aren't that different in their basic social habits and beliefs. my father in law does research over there most of his life, and i can tell you they submit to authority like you wouldn't believe. far more than western society. it has good effects but also bad, they aren't nearly as creative or ambitious. but when they have a clear authority, they bow to it quickly. additionally, japan had EXTREME national pride. what that meant was that once the destruction had occurred and they were defeated, they knew one thing: they wanted to have pride again. this time, they wisely chose to avoid military pride and simply rebuild economically (with our help), and so thats what they did.

in the middle east, the problem isn't generally the iraqi's or the afghani's. its a bunch of crack pots from other countries. they come in, stir up problems, recruit some people, and cause havoc. it would be like if we had gone into japan and made peace and meanwhile the chinese were shipping over nut jobs to blow us up and stir up trouble. iraq and afghanistan really don't have much national pride because theyve never had much to be proud of. theyve been ruled by dictators and generally been at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to world affairs. the general citizen is more concerned with living and getting by any way possible than getting national pride. remember, they just recently (in the grand scheme of things) had their first elections. ever.

i don't think you can sit back and criticize specific political or military philosophies as the reason for failures in the middle east. the problem over there is that if you don't completely eradicate the enemy (which often means killing many, many civilians) you will never get rid of the problem. you can't reason with them, you can't use rebuilding and economic stability as reasons for peace because many of the people fighting aren't even nationals!

[Byte Stryke]

I do agree with one aspect of the subject of Japan.
Every Japanese national was an enemy, there were no "hands off" targets
we went in, firebombed them to boost our morale and show strength after PH. then we dropped 2 atomic warheads to show them our our resolve to win.

Don't ever forget, we didn't start it, but we will finish it.

[Elhuero]

I do agree with one aspect of the subject of Japan.
Every Japanese national was an enemy, there were no "hands off" targets
we went in, firebombed them to boost our morale and show strength after PH. then we dropped 2 atomic warheads to show them our our resolve to win.

Don't ever forget, we didn't start it, but we will finish it.

yup, the "war on terror" is as pointless as the "war on drugs"

we need to take the gloves off and be vicious to radical islam.

[Byte Stryke]

yup, the "war on terror" is as pointless as the "war on drugs"

we need to take the gloves off and be vicious to radical islam.

I think that if the terrorists hide in civilian populations... we carpet bomb that city.
the only way to win a war is to make the cost of resistance so high that it becomes ineffective to fight it.

Even the taliban and Al-quada understand this and that's exactly what they are doing.

[colocowboy01]

Sounds like a cool book, Pancho. I will have to read it.