Revisionist Historians
Rice and Rummy, that is. Slate's Daniel Benjamin demolishes their pitiful attempts to claim that the serious, ongoing and increasing problems of the Iraq occupation are similar to what happened in Germany in 1945-47.
"There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes," [Rice] told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25. "But as some of you here today surely remember, the road we traveled was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 was an especially challenging period. Germany was not immediately stable or prosperous. SS officers—called 'werewolves'—engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them—much like today's Baathist and Fedayeen remnants."
...
According to America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, a new study by former Ambassador James Dobbins, who had a lead role in the Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo reconstruction efforts, and a team of RAND Corporation researchers, the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany—and Japan, Haiti, and the two Balkan cases—was zero.
I think the number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Iraq is currently around 70 dead, hundreds wounded. And, as Condi has pointed out recently, we're just getting started.
Rice and Rummy, that is. Slate's Daniel Benjamin demolishes their pitiful attempts to claim that the serious, ongoing and increasing problems of the Iraq occupation are similar to what happened in Germany in 1945-47.
"There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes," [Rice] told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25. "But as some of you here today surely remember, the road we traveled was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 was an especially challenging period. Germany was not immediately stable or prosperous. SS officers—called 'werewolves'—engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them—much like today's Baathist and Fedayeen remnants."
...
According to America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq, a new study by former Ambassador James Dobbins, who had a lead role in the Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo reconstruction efforts, and a team of RAND Corporation researchers, the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany—and Japan, Haiti, and the two Balkan cases—was zero.
I think the number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Iraq is currently around 70 dead, hundreds wounded. And, as Condi has pointed out recently, we're just getting started.
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