The exploitation was not in the form of taking iraqs oil or gold or something.
It was enrichment of defense contractors. Sales of munitions. Security costs. Billions of dollars paid to American companies for nothing. These American companies took taxpayer money hand over fist. They're still doing it. CEOs rolling in cash. The situation in Iraq is just a pretext to give away money.
Matter of fact Trump's talking about privatizing Afghanistan security costs now. Another excuse to just give away money without accountability or oversight or any reason.
I couldn't agree more with this. There has been a huge amount of criticism for the failure to plan for what happened after the Iraq war, but I think the miserable performance there has at least as much to do with the inappropriate application of the profit motive as lack of initial planning.
I was talking with a cousin who I don't get to have chats with very often last weekend. He was in Iraq during the heat of the war. I asked about something that had always bothered me, about how much they had to pay to call home when they had the chance. It was something around a dollar per minute. And my question was, why should you have had to do that?? With the money that was being thrown around in that country after we rolled in, the fact that the American taxpayer could foot the bill for TRILLIONS of dollars being handed out to defense contractors like Halliburton, but couldn't foot the bill for the soldiers to place a 20 minute phone call to their loved ones without charging them for it seemed to me to be the height of obscenity. None of our telcom companies could eat this cost?? None of the companies building Burger Kings and Pizza Huts in the Green Zone could part with this amount of cash?? The fact is, sticking a yellow ribbon on the back of your SUV and calling yourself a supporter of the troops doesn't mean jack shit. How about dealing with something like this, which would have been so simple and meaningful, yet could never happen because of capitalistic and imperial greed. The fact is, our SOLDIERS, while in Iraq, had to put their salary right back into the pockets of the corporations who were using the war as a money-funnel, just so they could maintain some semblance of sanity.
In WW2, the entire country was asked to make immense sacrifices in the war effort. It truly was a national collaboration that involved everyone from wives and children to industry itself. No one was asked to sacrifice for Iraq but the soldiers and their families. The rest of us were told to go shopping.
Of course, it's failure was inevitable - you can't impose democracy, it has to be a choice embraced by a huge majority of the population.
And opponents of Obamacare would argue the same thing: it's failure is inevitable.
Erm, I wouldn't call kicking a resting hornet's nest imposing democracy. The people in Iraq aren't monsters, and there was no attempt to create a stable state, just a puppet to exploit.
There is only one form of stable state that can be created from outside: dictatorship. Having invaded, that was the only possible option for stability.
Of course, it's failure was inevitable - you can't impose democracy, it has to be a choice embraced by a huge majority of the population.
And opponents of Obamacare would argue the same thing: it's failure is inevitable.
Erm, I wouldn't call kicking a resting hornet's nest imposing democracy. The people in Iraq aren't monsters, and there was no attempt to create a stable state, just a puppet to exploit.
There is only one form of stable state that can be created from outside: dictatorship. Having invaded, that was the only possible option for stability.
What about Japan and Germany? Both countries were turned to democracy via outside force, though for Germany it was a return. Iraq could have been handled a lot better, and might have had a better outcome if it did.
Of course, it's failure was inevitable - you can't impose democracy, it has to be a choice embraced by a huge majority of the population.
And opponents of Obamacare would argue the same thing: it's failure is inevitable.
Erm, I wouldn't call kicking a resting hornet's nest imposing democracy. The people in Iraq aren't monsters, and there was no attempt to create a stable state, just a puppet to exploit.
There is only one form of stable state that can be created from outside: dictatorship. Having invaded, that was the only possible option for stability.
What about Japan and Germany? Both countries were turned to democracy via outside force, though for Germany it was a return. Iraq could have been handled a lot better, and might have had a better outcome if it did.
Well, we nuked Japan, and Germany was gonna be next, so...
Japan had little choice in the matter, but the Japanese did a spectacular job of adapting to the new system. Historically, a lot of non-Western countries tended to resist processes like democratization, industrialization, and modernization more generally. Japan, however, had been very proactive about reform ever since Perry shook the legitimacy of the old regime and inspired the Meiji oligarchs to take over. The end result was a long period in which reformers (maybe not democratic reformers, but reformers nonetheless) dominated Japanese politics and aggressively modernized the country. Japan might not have had a history of democracy like Germany did, but Japan did have a history of adopting modern reforms far faster than its neighbors did.
There were plenty of differences between the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Japan, but I think the biggest difference is the reaction from the locals. There was no insurgency in Japan; there was barely even nonviolent resistance. It's true the U.S. did have a nuclear threat over Japan--to the extent that an American diplomat, when introducing a new constitution for Japan, made a casual remark that "We have been enjoying Japan's nuclear sunshine"--but that gives too little credit to the Japanese for how things turned out. The Japanese made Japan not simply into a demilitarized democracy, as the U.S. wanted, but also an advanced economy and a stalwart ally of the United States. They overhauled Japan's entire national strategy--an expansionistic, military-run empire--in favor of something better.
Ultimately, American intervention is what people make of it.
Its not like Iraq had a choice either, but its turning out differently. The Iraqis rejected the intervention because it wasn't really warranted. Had the UN deposed Saddam after the first war like they did for the Emperor (who was turned into a complete figurehead), I suspect things would have proceeded better. Instead, a mad dictator was allowed to cling to power, and the populace was made to be very hostile to the US, as they pushed for sanctions that made life ugly. It must be noted that in Japan many elements of the ruling establishment kept power, as the US knew the facist businessmen would not tolerate communism, in Iraq the country was instead thrown into utter chaos.
I will also say Japan and Germany were both legitimate attempts at rebuilding, yet I never saw Iraq the same way, nor did the locals. It is probably true the Iraqis were bitter, but so was Japan. You can hardly say its the fault of the Iraqis that the government installed was not considered representative, as it was too friendly to the US and UK. I would argue the rebuilding of Iraq was very half-assed, and motivated by profit for US corporations, not helping the people of Iraq.
The other thing between the middle east and Japan is that Iraq (and other nations) did not get to draw their own borders. After the fall of the Ottoman empire England, France and all the other "victors" carved up the region with little regard to the already established cultural tribal borders. This led to minority groups (or even majority groups) being oppressed through force.
Once that force is removed, those who were in power dont want to submit to democracy as they'd lose all the privileges they had. Those who were oppressed do not want to forgive and forget which causes internal strife escalated by a vacuum of power.
Tons of reports tonight, both that Mueller is closing in on Trump's finances (again, money laundering) and that Trump is already asking aides about pardoning nearly everyone involved, including, according to the Washington Post.....HIMSELF. He is going to fire Mueller (or go through deputy AGs until he finds one who will fire him), and he is going to use the power of the Presidential pardon to make his associates and family, and even, again, HIMSELF, immune from the law. Mark this post down if you want, and stay tuned.
I would say also that there's another MASSIVE difference between Japan and Iraq. The state of war.
1. Formal declarations of war. Japan declared on US before US on Japan. (Although not before Pearl Harbor, lack of computers meant too much time was spent decrypting the message that was to be given to the US that it wasn't given until AFTER the attack). The Iraq War, formal declaration of whatsit?
2. The sheer scale of the war in time, material and dead. The Pacific War was roughly 3.5 years long (once America got involved), and Japan lost some 3.5 million people in the fighting (since 1937). In the Iraq War, the "legtimately combat" phase, was...3 weeks and less than 15k dead Iraqi.
3. Related to #2 I suppose, is the balance of power. Japan was smaller than the US by most measures of power, but not by much, as measured by the conditions of the start of the war. Yes, America is famous for having won the war through a MASSIVE industrial throughput that eventually exceeded the entire pre-war Axis alliance, but that was not the condition at the start since so much of American production was idle due to the Depression. The IJN navy was probably bigger than the Pacific navy since America has had to split its navy between two oceans.
In comparison, at the Iraq War, the unquestionably MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD attacked what was a rather small nation.
Tons of reports tonight, both that Mueller is closing in on Trump's finances (again, money laundering) and that Trump is already asking aides about pardoning nearly everyone involved, including, according to the Washington Post.....HIMSELF. He is going to fire Mueller (or go through deputy AGs until he finds one who will fire him), and he is going to use the power of the Presidential pardon to make his associates and family, and even, again, HIMSELF, immune from the law. Mark this post down if you want, and stay tuned.
I started saying it two months ago that Trump was going to wind up giving out preemptive pardons. Pardoning himself, though...as far as I know that isn't technically illegal but it would be extremely unethical and would be logically equivalent to Trump stating without any doubt that he is above the law.
Yes, it will be 1973 all over again. I can't wait to see the tweets over the next few days. This time, though, the fallout will be worse than it was back then.
Meanwhile, Mark Corallo, communications strategist (is that even a real job or did someone fabricate that job title from thin air?) for Trump's legal team, has resigned. Look for more resignations as people being trying to put as much distance as they can between themselves and Trump.
Maybe he will find out that technically he could pardon his son, his step-son, his daughter, himself, and his businesses and his horse.
I would hope that would be the straw that broke the camel's back and a self-respecting Republican or two just might decide enough is enough with this guy and stop being his yes men. I know I am a dreamer.
Tons of reports tonight, both that Mueller is closing in on Trump's finances (again, money laundering) and that Trump is already asking aides about pardoning nearly everyone involved, including, according to the Washington Post.....HIMSELF. He is going to fire Mueller (or go through deputy AGs until he finds one who will fire him), and he is going to use the power of the Presidential pardon to make his associates and family, and even, again, HIMSELF, immune from the law. Mark this post down if you want, and stay tuned.
I started saying it two months ago that Trump was going to wind up giving out preemptive pardons. Pardoning himself, though...as far as I know that isn't technically illegal but it would be extremely unethical and would be logically equivalent to Trump stating without any doubt that he is above the law.
Yes, it will be 1973 all over again. I can't wait to see the tweets over the next few days. This time, though, the fallout will be worse than it was back then.
Meanwhile, Mark Corallo, communications strategist (is that even a real job or did someone fabricate that job title from thin air?) for Trump's legal team, has resigned. Look for more resignations as people being trying to put as much distance as they can between themselves and Trump.
At that point, the entire fate of the rule of law in this country will fall to the Republican Congress, and all signs point to them failing miserably at that test. It's always been clear what "fake news" and the attacks on the media have been about: a preemptive strike so certain segments of the population will NEVER believe there has been any wrongdoing. But the media is now small potatoes. Indications seem to be that this legal team spokesperson resigned because they are gearing up to attack Robert Mueller with every knife in the drawer. I mean....these are not the actions of an innocent person. IF Trump is innocent, he is still very much ACTING like a man who is guilty as sin. There is a reason Trump hid his taxes. There is a reason he seems utterly petrified of the FBI digging into his financial dealings. It seems inevitable at this point that the Russian "collusion", and why they engaged in helping him during the campaign, is because he has been being financed almost exclusively by Russian banks and billionaires for the last decade or more, and what they got in return was a massive way to launder their money through his real estate properties.
As for people distancing themselves, it has been well-known for awhile that most career professionals who decided they wanted a reputation after this is over have simply refused to work for this Administration. There is a reason besides incompetence and laziness they aren't filling governmental posts. They can't find anyone who will work for him.
I'd like to quote again from Josh Marshall, a liberal, but very level-headed and rational reporter who runs TPM whose work I have been following on Russia since last summer:
As I said above, there are lots of details. But each has the same effect. President Trump will define the scope of Mueller’s investigation. Mueller will continue his investigation only as long as President Trump wants: Trump and his spokespeople have now repeatedly said that the President reserves the right to fire Mueller. The President is also prepared to pardon some or all of the people under investigation. Again, many details, one upshot: Mueller can only do what the President allows. That amounts to saying that the President will not allow the law to operate with respect to him or his family.
From a different perspective, we are beginning to see what everyone who’s studied Trump’s business history knows: to paraphrase the Army maxim, Trump’s business would not survive first contact with real legal scrutiny. So he made clear in yesterday’s Times interview that any review of his or his family’s business history would be unacceptable.
It is quite remarkable that in a wide-ranging investigation into his campaign and himself Trump could have any expectation that his tax returns would remain off limits to Mueller. These are after all government documents. Highly confidential, to be sure, subject to many restrictions. But they’re not like a military service psych profile or years of private medical records. It’s an amazing admission. Frankly, I’ve always assumed the really bad stuff wouldn’t actually be in the tax returns. I figure that stuff is either off the books or hidden in mazes of shell companies. Obviously a forensic accountant would use the returns not to pull the Russia collusion declaration (he filed out a RUS1917!) but rather as a starting place to begin sleuthing out the details that remain opaque in the forms themselves. However that may be, wow, he’s really worried about having anyone look at those tax returns, isn’t he!??!?
What it all comes down to is this. As I’ve written before, President Trump has been in crooked business for decades: money laundering, mob partnerships, various straight-up swindles. Statutes of limitations will have run out on most of those infractions but not all of them. This has always been obvious to me and everyone else who’s looked closely at Trump’s record. What recent weeks has made clear to me is that there’s almost certainly lots of dirty laundry tied to money deals and connivances with the Russia government.
Trump is in many ways his own worst accuser. Anyone who’s been in business for decades would not welcome a searching legal scrutiny of years of business. Most people, certainly in Trump’s line of work, aren’t totally clean. And a determined prosecutor can often find technical infractions that in the normal course of things would never be an issue. So no one would like this. But Trump is willing to run the most unimaginable political and even criminal risks to block even the beginnings of a serious probe into his business history and the 2016 election. We are far, far past the point where there is any credible reason to doubt that President Trump is hiding major and broad-ranging wrongdoing. No mix of ego, inexperience, embarrassment or anything else can explain his behavior. It just can’t. He’s hiding bad acts. And the country is likely heading toward a major constitutional and political crisis because Trump is signaling that he will not allow the normal course of the law to apply to him – a challenge which puts the entire edifice of democratic government under threat.
Japan became a democracy (of sorts) obeying the orders of a divine emperor. Which would make it still an absolute monarchy in spirit.
The divine emperor ideology was devised by elites as a means to wrest power from the Shogun, and was utilised in turn by right wingers against reformist elements. This ideology was never entirely uncontested, and in making the surrender broadcast Hirohito and the government were merely trying to stay ahead of the curve and present the inevitable as an act of benevolence. Hirohito was quickly eclipsed by SCAP headed by McArthur, and many of the forms of government which continue to this day may be derived from the period of military rule. John Dower and Herbert Bix have written good books on the occupation & Hirohito.
At that point, the entire fate of the rule of law in this country will fall to the Republican Congress, and all signs point to them failing miserably at that test. It's always been clear what "fake news" and the attacks on the media have been about: a preemptive strike so certain segments of the population will NEVER believe there has been any wrongdoing. But the media is now small potatoes. Indications seem to be that this legal team spokesperson resigned because they are gearing up to attack Robert Mueller with every knife in the drawer. I mean....these are not the actions of an innocent person. IF Trump is innocent, he is still very much ACTING like a man who is guilty as sin. There is a reason Trump hid his taxes. There is a reason he seems utterly petrified of the FBI digging into his financial dealings. It seems inevitable at this point that the Russian "collusion", and why they engaged in helping him during the campaign, is because he has been being financed almost exclusively by Russian banks and billionaires for the last decade or more, and what they got in return was a massive way to launder their money through his real estate properties.
I think this view may be a bit too pessimistic. If it is ultimately clear that Trump is guilty of major wrongdoing, but proposes to get himself out of it by issuing pardons, I think Congress would act against him. However, that's still quite a distant situation.
I agree that Trump is currently acting as if he is "guilty as sin", but that doesn't mean he is. Consider the parallel with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many people accepted that they existed because they started with a preconception that they existed and interpreted the available evidence to fit that preconception. I'm at least willing to admit the possibility that's happening with Trump at the moment.
The article you referenced from Josh Marshall referred to the possibility that Trump's business dealings would include technical infractions of the law. That seems to me to be as absolute a certainty as you're likely to find in this life. At the next level down those dealings could include things which are not just illegal, but that I would find immoral - and given what I know about his business dealings already that also seems to me to be a near certainty. However, what I think of as immoral will not be the same as the view taken by others. That type of difference of views could lead to a situation where Congress splits pretty much over party lines due to disagreement about whether wrongdoing was serious or not - which is essentially where we are now.
If further information becomes known though that does make it clear that Trump had been acting in ways that most Republicans considered immoral (and accepting Russian financing in return for promoting their interests would be a good start on that) I would expect Republicans to move from a "we must protect our own" stance to "he was clearly never a Republican and deserves everything coming to him".
The problem with pardons is this: if you accept a Presidential pardon for crime x then you are openly admitting your guilt to crime x (I would have to look up the Supreme Court decision which states this) even if you cannot be prosecuted for it. This forces us to ask the questions, "could Trump stand the thought of his close advisors (some of whom are family members) admitting guilt?" and "could he stand it for himself?".
The problem with pardons is this: if you accept a Presidential pardon for crime x then you are openly admitting your guilt to crime x (I would have to look up the Supreme Court decision which states this) even if you cannot be prosecuted for it. This forces us to ask the questions, "could Trump stand the thought of his close advisors (some of whom are family members) admitting guilt?" and "could he stand it for himself?".
I believe getting out of the hot set by claiming executive privilege will not be possible once a pardon is accepted also because it will no longer apply.
At that point, the entire fate of the rule of law in this country will fall to the Republican Congress, and all signs point to them failing miserably at that test. It's always been clear what "fake news" and the attacks on the media have been about: a preemptive strike so certain segments of the population will NEVER believe there has been any wrongdoing. But the media is now small potatoes. Indications seem to be that this legal team spokesperson resigned because they are gearing up to attack Robert Mueller with every knife in the drawer. I mean....these are not the actions of an innocent person. IF Trump is innocent, he is still very much ACTING like a man who is guilty as sin. There is a reason Trump hid his taxes. There is a reason he seems utterly petrified of the FBI digging into his financial dealings. It seems inevitable at this point that the Russian "collusion", and why they engaged in helping him during the campaign, is because he has been being financed almost exclusively by Russian banks and billionaires for the last decade or more, and what they got in return was a massive way to launder their money through his real estate properties.
I think this view may be a bit too pessimistic. If it is ultimately clear that Trump is guilty of major wrongdoing, but proposes to get himself out of it by issuing pardons, I think Congress would act against him. However, that's still quite a distant situation.
I agree that Trump is currently acting as if he is "guilty as sin", but that doesn't mean he is. Consider the parallel with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many people accepted that they existed because they started with a preconception that they existed and interpreted the available evidence to fit that preconception. I'm at least willing to admit the possibility that's happening with Trump at the moment.
The article you referenced from Josh Marshall referred to the possibility that Trump's business dealings would include technical infractions of the law. That seems to me to be as absolute a certainty as you're likely to find in this life. At the next level down those dealings could include things which are not just illegal, but that I would find immoral - and given what I know about his business dealings already that also seems to me to be a near certainty. However, what I think of as immoral will not be the same as the view taken by others. That type of difference of views could lead to a situation where Congress splits pretty much over party lines due to disagreement about whether wrongdoing was serious or not - which is essentially where we are now.
If further information becomes known though that does make it clear that Trump had been acting in ways that most Republicans considered immoral (and accepting Russian financing in return for promoting their interests would be a good start on that) I would expect Republicans to move from a "we must protect our own" stance to "he was clearly never a Republican and deserves everything coming to him".
Aside from what Republicans will do, I find this to be a fair assessment. Of course, everyone knows about Occam's Razor, in which if there exists two explanations for something, the simplest one is almost certainly correct. In this case, the simple answer is that Trump is absolutely terrified about the FBI digging into his business and finances. But the very same Josh Marshall I quoted came up with his own theory months ago called "Trump's Razor", which he described as "ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts" and that is usually correct when it regards Trump.
The problem with pardons is this: if you accept a Presidential pardon for crime x then you are openly admitting your guilt to crime x (I would have to look up the Supreme Court decision which states this) even if you cannot be prosecuted for it. This forces us to ask the questions, "could Trump stand the thought of his close advisors (some of whom are family members) admitting guilt?" and "could he stand it for himself?".
Here is the key though, and something I didn't even know: The President can only grant pardons for Federal crimes. He cannot grant them for State crimes. If this all goes the way I think it will, the last line of defense for the law may be Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York. Fascinating.
I don't blame Spicer for resigning at all. None of us would have been able to function with anything approaching normalcy in that job, either, given the rate and content of Presidential tweets.
We've been on the Russa train for months and months now and the charade is getting old. Even the Washington Post, who feed on Russia fever dreams like a vampire on blood, publish polls skewed heavily in the numbers towards democrats and independents, which say that democrats have no principles but Anti Trump sentiment.
First I was surprised at this result, but then I realize it made total sense. Ordinary people know that if you lob accusation after accusation for nearly a year yet none of them stick, you're the boy who cried wolf. You lose your credibility. Very few now buy the notion that this is honest concern for election integrity, and why would they? The entire media cycle began with revelation after revelation of the very same election interference they scream to the moon about.
The difference between the left and right in this country is accountability. The right is held accountable for every dumn remark by every dumb politician. Covfefe and ScoopGate became things because the media is blatantly desperate for AntiTrump content no matter how absurd. The left can and do lie and fabriciate wild nonsense...and they get away with it, because it doesn't become a media cycle, because in 2013 only 7% of journalists were Republican and its not much better now despite a conservative majority in the country. Examples abound from Democrats claiming Russia hacking the power grid to CNN editing out violent remarks by figures they want to be sympathetic to cheated national debates and rigged primary elections, Obama discriminating by race and religion for top level jobs, Ukraine and DNC "collusion" to provide AntiTrump information, the DNC colluding (no quotes) with their favored candidate. No accountability for anything, the media has goldfish memory when it comes to the left and quite naturally blindness among their followers sets in.
This discrepancy is the sole reason the Russia hysteria continues to be stoked. An honest and fair minded accounting of election integrity would destory the Democratic Party, and they know it.
As an aside, I highly doubt there will be pardons issued, as that implies something actually illegal happened. I say this in regards to Russiaphobia, of course. I dare not speak for the mans personal history even as I agree with his political principles.
I must sound like a broken record at times, but truly, is there anything more to say? Those who want to believe will accept circumstantial evidence as acceptable and those who are skeptical will not. Nothing has changed that dynamic as of now.
Never liked Spicer anyway. Too establishment, apologetic where it is not deserved, too afraid to call a spade a spade, nothing like what Trump's administration needs.
Never liked Spicer anyway. Too establishment, apologetic where it is not deserved, too afraid to call a spade a spade, nothing like what Trump's administration needs.
If Sean Spicer is such an establishment tool, why did God Emeperor Trump, with his unerring eye for talent, hire him in the first place?? Coincidentally, this is the EXACT same argument I heard Rush Limbaugh make 20 minutes ago when I was driving to lunch.
It's for the best, really. You could tell that Spicer hated his job. He will be much happier elsewhere.
There is no functioning staff in the West Wing. It's Lord of the Flies over there. Incidentally, this Scaramucci character has sleaze oozing out from every one of his pores. He looks like an extra from Wolf of Wall Street. That said, I'm fine with it, because he has now hired someone else who has no experience in their job. Hedge fund manager as White House Communications Director?? Sure. Put a brain surgeon in charge of Housing and Urban Development?? Check. Trump wants people who will look good defending him on cable news. That's pretty much the only prerequisite for this job. And the job, by the way, is impossible. You can't coordinate a message with someone who has zero self-control. Think back to when Trump fired Comey, and for about 36 hours we heard reason after reason as to why he was fired from the Communications staff. Then Trump went on TV with Lester Holt and obliterated everything they had said over the previous day. At this point, he is simply running through bodies. And he will dispose of them at a moment's notice. Spicer, Preibus, Bannon, Don, Jr., anyone besides MAYBE Ivanka. Anyone watch Harry Potter?? One of the most interesting aspects of the late parts of that series is when the Death Eaters realize that Voldemort will sacrifice any one of them at any time if it means saving his own neck. That's what you get when you work for Trump. He will drain whatever value he can from you and toss you to the side of the road.
Comments
In WW2, the entire country was asked to make immense sacrifices in the war effort. It truly was a national collaboration that involved everyone from wives and children to industry itself. No one was asked to sacrifice for Iraq but the soldiers and their families. The rest of us were told to go shopping.
Link - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/19/poland-may-lose-eu-voting-rights-over-judicial-independence
There were plenty of differences between the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Japan, but I think the biggest difference is the reaction from the locals. There was no insurgency in Japan; there was barely even nonviolent resistance. It's true the U.S. did have a nuclear threat over Japan--to the extent that an American diplomat, when introducing a new constitution for Japan, made a casual remark that "We have been enjoying Japan's nuclear sunshine"--but that gives too little credit to the Japanese for how things turned out. The Japanese made Japan not simply into a demilitarized democracy, as the U.S. wanted, but also an advanced economy and a stalwart ally of the United States. They overhauled Japan's entire national strategy--an expansionistic, military-run empire--in favor of something better.
Ultimately, American intervention is what people make of it.
I will also say Japan and Germany were both legitimate attempts at rebuilding, yet I never saw Iraq the same way, nor did the locals. It is probably true the Iraqis were bitter, but so was Japan. You can hardly say its the fault of the Iraqis that the government installed was not considered representative, as it was too friendly to the US and UK. I would argue the rebuilding of Iraq was very half-assed, and motivated by profit for US corporations, not helping the people of Iraq.
Once that force is removed, those who were in power dont want to submit to democracy as they'd lose all the privileges they had. Those who were oppressed do not want to forgive and forget which causes internal strife escalated by a vacuum of power.
1. Formal declarations of war. Japan declared on US before US on Japan. (Although not before Pearl Harbor, lack of computers meant too much time was spent decrypting the message that was to be given to the US that it wasn't given until AFTER the attack). The Iraq War, formal declaration of whatsit?
2. The sheer scale of the war in time, material and dead. The Pacific War was roughly 3.5 years long (once America got involved), and Japan lost some 3.5 million people in the fighting (since 1937). In the Iraq War, the "legtimately combat" phase, was...3 weeks and less than 15k dead Iraqi.
3. Related to #2 I suppose, is the balance of power. Japan was smaller than the US by most measures of power, but not by much, as measured by the conditions of the start of the war. Yes, America is famous for having won the war through a MASSIVE industrial throughput that eventually exceeded the entire pre-war Axis alliance, but that was not the condition at the start since so much of American production was idle due to the Depression. The IJN navy was probably bigger than the Pacific navy since America has had to split its navy between two oceans.
In comparison, at the Iraq War, the unquestionably MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD attacked what was a rather small nation.
Yes, it will be 1973 all over again. I can't wait to see the tweets over the next few days. This time, though, the fallout will be worse than it was back then.
Meanwhile, Mark Corallo, communications strategist (is that even a real job or did someone fabricate that job title from thin air?) for Trump's legal team, has resigned. Look for more resignations as people being trying to put as much distance as they can between themselves and Trump.
I would hope that would be the straw that broke the camel's back and a self-respecting Republican or two just might decide enough is enough with this guy and stop being his yes men. I know I am a dreamer.
As for people distancing themselves, it has been well-known for awhile that most career professionals who decided they wanted a reputation after this is over have simply refused to work for this Administration. There is a reason besides incompetence and laziness they aren't filling governmental posts. They can't find anyone who will work for him.
As I said above, there are lots of details. But each has the same effect. President Trump will define the scope of Mueller’s investigation. Mueller will continue his investigation only as long as President Trump wants: Trump and his spokespeople have now repeatedly said that the President reserves the right to fire Mueller. The President is also prepared to pardon some or all of the people under investigation. Again, many details, one upshot: Mueller can only do what the President allows. That amounts to saying that the President will not allow the law to operate with respect to him or his family.
From a different perspective, we are beginning to see what everyone who’s studied Trump’s business history knows: to paraphrase the Army maxim, Trump’s business would not survive first contact with real legal scrutiny. So he made clear in yesterday’s Times interview that any review of his or his family’s business history would be unacceptable.
It is quite remarkable that in a wide-ranging investigation into his campaign and himself Trump could have any expectation that his tax returns would remain off limits to Mueller. These are after all government documents. Highly confidential, to be sure, subject to many restrictions. But they’re not like a military service psych profile or years of private medical records. It’s an amazing admission. Frankly, I’ve always assumed the really bad stuff wouldn’t actually be in the tax returns. I figure that stuff is either off the books or hidden in mazes of shell companies. Obviously a forensic accountant would use the returns not to pull the Russia collusion declaration (he filed out a RUS1917!) but rather as a starting place to begin sleuthing out the details that remain opaque in the forms themselves. However that may be, wow, he’s really worried about having anyone look at those tax returns, isn’t he!??!?
What it all comes down to is this. As I’ve written before, President Trump has been in crooked business for decades: money laundering, mob partnerships, various straight-up swindles. Statutes of limitations will have run out on most of those infractions but not all of them. This has always been obvious to me and everyone else who’s looked closely at Trump’s record. What recent weeks has made clear to me is that there’s almost certainly lots of dirty laundry tied to money deals and connivances with the Russia government.
Trump is in many ways his own worst accuser. Anyone who’s been in business for decades would not welcome a searching legal scrutiny of years of business. Most people, certainly in Trump’s line of work, aren’t totally clean. And a determined prosecutor can often find technical infractions that in the normal course of things would never be an issue. So no one would like this. But Trump is willing to run the most unimaginable political and even criminal risks to block even the beginnings of a serious probe into his business history and the 2016 election. We are far, far past the point where there is any credible reason to doubt that President Trump is hiding major and broad-ranging wrongdoing. No mix of ego, inexperience, embarrassment or anything else can explain his behavior. It just can’t. He’s hiding bad acts. And the country is likely heading toward a major constitutional and political crisis because Trump is signaling that he will not allow the normal course of the law to apply to him – a challenge which puts the entire edifice of democratic government under threat.
I agree that Trump is currently acting as if he is "guilty as sin", but that doesn't mean he is. Consider the parallel with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many people accepted that they existed because they started with a preconception that they existed and interpreted the available evidence to fit that preconception. I'm at least willing to admit the possibility that's happening with Trump at the moment.
The article you referenced from Josh Marshall referred to the possibility that Trump's business dealings would include technical infractions of the law. That seems to me to be as absolute a certainty as you're likely to find in this life. At the next level down those dealings could include things which are not just illegal, but that I would find immoral - and given what I know about his business dealings already that also seems to me to be a near certainty. However, what I think of as immoral will not be the same as the view taken by others. That type of difference of views could lead to a situation where Congress splits pretty much over party lines due to disagreement about whether wrongdoing was serious or not - which is essentially where we are now.
If further information becomes known though that does make it clear that Trump had been acting in ways that most Republicans considered immoral (and accepting Russian financing in return for promoting their interests would be a good start on that) I would expect Republicans to move from a "we must protect our own" stance to "he was clearly never a Republican and deserves everything coming to him".
First I was surprised at this result, but then I realize it made total sense. Ordinary people know that if you lob accusation after accusation for nearly a year yet none of them stick, you're the boy who cried wolf. You lose your credibility. Very few now buy the notion that this is honest concern for election integrity, and why would they? The entire media cycle began with revelation after revelation of the very same election interference they scream to the moon about.
The difference between the left and right in this country is accountability. The right is held accountable for every dumn remark by every dumb politician. Covfefe and ScoopGate became things because the media is blatantly desperate for AntiTrump content no matter how absurd. The left can and do lie and fabriciate wild nonsense...and they get away with it, because it doesn't become a media cycle, because in 2013 only 7% of journalists were Republican and its not much better now despite a conservative majority in the country. Examples abound from Democrats claiming Russia hacking the power grid to CNN editing out violent remarks by figures they want to be sympathetic to cheated national debates and rigged primary elections, Obama discriminating by race and religion for top level jobs, Ukraine and DNC "collusion" to provide AntiTrump information, the DNC colluding (no quotes) with their favored candidate. No accountability for anything, the media has goldfish memory when it comes to the left and quite naturally blindness among their followers sets in.
This discrepancy is the sole reason the Russia hysteria continues to be stoked. An honest and fair minded accounting of election integrity would destory the Democratic Party, and they know it.
As an aside, I highly doubt there will be pardons issued, as that implies something actually illegal happened. I say this in regards to Russiaphobia, of course. I dare not speak for the mans personal history even as I agree with his political principles.
I must sound like a broken record at times, but truly, is there anything more to say? Those who want to believe will accept circumstantial evidence as acceptable and those who are skeptical will not. Nothing has changed that dynamic as of now.