Quote #121
If the country had been flooded with several 100,000 troops, as Shinseki advised, and if the orders had not been so grotesque (stand by quietly while the cultural wealth of Iraq, and humanity, was destroyed in a way reminiscent of the Mongol invasion; treat the population with contempt and brutality; allow the society to reconstruct instead of imposing ultra-liberal measures bound to destroy it, etc.), then the place might have been pacified as well as northern Europe was under the Nazis -- or the Philippines, after a decade of extreme brutality, victory having been declared repeatedly during those years. Just how one judges such an outcome depends on other choices.