DesertFox
11-06-2003, 06:51 PM
<font>What 'botched' occupation? (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/11/06/what_botched_occupation/)</font>
By Jeff Jacoby, 11/6/2003
"EVERYWHERE I've traveled recently in Germany I've run into Americans, ranging from generals down to privates, who ask perplexedly, `What are we Americans supposed to be doing here? Are we going to take over this place and stay here forever?' "
So opened journalist Demaree Bess's article -- "How We Botched the German Occupation" -- in the Saturday Evening Post of Jan. 26, 1946. That was eight months after V-E Day, and Bess was sure that the Allies' military victory over Hitler was being squandered in the postwar.
"We have got into this German job without understanding what we were tackling or why," he wrote. "Not one American political leader fully realized at the outset how formidable our German commitments would prove to be. There was no idea, at the beginning, that Americans would become involved in a project to take Germany completely apart and put it together again in wholly new patterns."
Today, of course, few would argue that the United States "botched" the occupation of West Germany. Looking back from the early 21st century, it is clear that the transformation of the shattered Nazi Reich into a bulwark of democracy was one of the signal achievements of 20th-century statecraft. But on the ground in 1946, that happy outcome was nowhere in view. What was in view was an occupation beset by troubles -- chaotic, dangerous, and frequently vicious. Just like the one in Iraq today.
There is no denying that the news out of Iraq has been brutal lately. US soldiers die in roadside bombings and in brazen attacks like the helicopter downing that killed 15 on Sunday. Terrorists target civilian venues -- Red Cross offices, Muslim shrines, embassies -- for the bloodiest possible carnage. Iraqis are grateful to be free of Saddam Hussein, but many nonetheless inveigh against the American occupiers who toppled him. At the moment, Iraq seems a long, long way from anything resembling the stable and tolerant democracy President Bush says he is determined to see it become.
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Click here to read more (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/11/06/what_botched_occupation/)
By Jeff Jacoby, 11/6/2003
"EVERYWHERE I've traveled recently in Germany I've run into Americans, ranging from generals down to privates, who ask perplexedly, `What are we Americans supposed to be doing here? Are we going to take over this place and stay here forever?' "
So opened journalist Demaree Bess's article -- "How We Botched the German Occupation" -- in the Saturday Evening Post of Jan. 26, 1946. That was eight months after V-E Day, and Bess was sure that the Allies' military victory over Hitler was being squandered in the postwar.
"We have got into this German job without understanding what we were tackling or why," he wrote. "Not one American political leader fully realized at the outset how formidable our German commitments would prove to be. There was no idea, at the beginning, that Americans would become involved in a project to take Germany completely apart and put it together again in wholly new patterns."
Today, of course, few would argue that the United States "botched" the occupation of West Germany. Looking back from the early 21st century, it is clear that the transformation of the shattered Nazi Reich into a bulwark of democracy was one of the signal achievements of 20th-century statecraft. But on the ground in 1946, that happy outcome was nowhere in view. What was in view was an occupation beset by troubles -- chaotic, dangerous, and frequently vicious. Just like the one in Iraq today.
There is no denying that the news out of Iraq has been brutal lately. US soldiers die in roadside bombings and in brazen attacks like the helicopter downing that killed 15 on Sunday. Terrorists target civilian venues -- Red Cross offices, Muslim shrines, embassies -- for the bloodiest possible carnage. Iraqis are grateful to be free of Saddam Hussein, but many nonetheless inveigh against the American occupiers who toppled him. At the moment, Iraq seems a long, long way from anything resembling the stable and tolerant democracy President Bush says he is determined to see it become.
...
Click here to read more (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/11/06/what_botched_occupation/)