pennington10
Senior Squad
Originally posted by JTNY
Wrong.
Germany was ruined. That was a real, out and out war, (not like the Iraq one). Everything was bombed, the country had resources and utilities ruined (a significant deal more than Iraq). Consider carpet bombing of Dresden etc. Tha nation was carved up. Ask someone who lived in East Germany from the 1950s to the 1980s how the world powers were there to help them.
Additionally Iraq has been a centre of conflict for a long time. Germans were unified (before the East/West split) Iraq is near civil war. Iraq has been a trouble spot for a long time, ask colonial Britain how easy it is to control Iraq. It is not, besides controlling nations is not beneficial anyway.
I am going to have to disagree with these points.
First off everything in Europe was in shambles not just Germany. No country had the resources to get it back up on its feet by itself so it was seperated into parts so each country could help build it up and prevent any Nazi cells from popping up. In West Germany the french, American, and Britsh regions were formed into one after Germany were back on its feet. The problem was Stalin had gone off on his own little power grab after he had become powerful enough and gained nuclear techonolgy after the war. It was pretty much Truman's and Churchill's fault for trusting Stalin to begin with after he had already been in bed with Hitler. The difference I see between Iraq and Germany is the fact that Iraq is so far behind techonolgy wise than Germany was. Germany was one of the world's most industrialy advance countries before the start of WWII and it was easy to get everything set up in place it just took raw materials. In the case of Iraq it will take not only raw materials but it will take training and advancements just to get them up to speed in terms Industrial production and manufacturing.
As for the second point well for starters we are not trying to occupy Iraq but just help it become self sufficent. That isn't what I want to get at.
You said Germany was unified but it was really only unified under times of war or fear. Remember that Germany wasn't Germany until around the late 1890's I believe. It was the Holy Roman Empire until the Mid 1800's. The HRE was nothing more than a bunch of seperate princapalities. Every area had its own set of rules and laws. Then Otto Van Bismark came along and unified the HRE into Prussia. Remember after Prussia was formed it then got into the Franco-Prussian war. Prussia then became Germany and shortly after that it got into WWI. Then 15 years later Hitler took over and started to run the country by fear. WWII then started and it wasn't until after WWII that Germany was able to become stable and gain its own idenitiy as a country.
Germany wasn't excatly the model of stablitiy before WWII. They were not as bad off as Iraq is at the current time because they were able to keep up with the times in terms of Bussiness and techonolgy but that was due to being in Europe so information wasn't that hard obtain. Where as in the Middle East most countires have not obtained the techonolgy to keep up with International standards due to a lack of funds and the fact that the middle east has never really been up to date.
I think it isn't compeletly far fetched to compare Germany and Iraq.
All these hippies annoy me now. Ok i was anti war before the war and i was unsure they could pull off a clinical capture and restructure. But i am now for it. We are now in this now we have to do it right. but if it goes longer than January 2005 then it is a mess and they don't want our help.