[Preechr]

To a point.

If you run in killing anybody that doesn't like you, your list of targets is going to expand faster than you can load your guns. We really do have to do more for the people we "liberate" than their previous leaders. In Iraq, I believe we really are, so I guess we're expected to do WAY better.

You gotta figure these people have been struggling for decades now, imagining that one day, everything would get fixed, somehow, and then everything would be perfect. The key to any successful dictatorship, however, is avoiding revolt. There's only one method for that: know who you've wronged and either buy them off or kill them off, whichever works best. For the West to walk in and start sparing lives for just reasons and build schools and whatnot sorta sends the wrong message for those used to living under a dick like Saddam Hussein.

Under Saddam, to be spared or receive a gift was proof of the unjustness of your existence. Iraqis have been stuck in an incredibly abusive relationship with their government for such a long time that it's pretty silly to think that any prospective new government wouldn't have to work them through all that trauma in order to establish a healthy relationship with a modern government, such as the healthy relationship we have with our own government, or like the Mexicans do.

You can't do that sort of therapy with guns, yet we won't be finished with the job until the therapy is complete.

Yes, when there's bad guys to blow up, that needs to be done unequivocally and, especially, apolitically. We are in the process, however, of developing a second military force... one that's larger and less trigger happy. Like it or not, we will be needing it in order to eventually win the WOT.