AlphaWolf said:
Are you kidding me? Prior to the first world war, germany never had democracy, and they were sporting a failing democratic government after that point because their economy went to hell. For that period, they were probably worse off than any other country in the world. Hitler brought a halt to all of that, and the rest is history.
germany never had a democratic government, but was at the same time one of the leading roots for the workers movement in europe and a history of republican uprisings in 17xx (dont exactly remember), 1848 and 1916 and local revolutions (example is the "soviet republic" of munich in 1920 as well as the revolution in baden-württemberg 1846). the sad part is that all of them failed (germans are appearantly uncapable of revolution) but nevertheless germany at this point _was_ a country with history in democratic comprehension and a conscious public.
that the republic of weimar went to hell has a few reasons ... for one thing keeping the establishment in administration, justice and military was a huge mistake since they were never ready to support a republic. you can hand the blame for that to the social democrats.
second, the treaty of versailles was extremely oppressive and marked by imperialistic interests of the surrounding european states and was targeted to weakening the country so much that it would never become a danger to their own imperial interests again.
third reason is that no one really wanted that republic. the social democrats wanted a constitutional monarchy for the most part, the old elites wanted a military dictatorship or a monarchy, the socialists wanted a soviet based republic. those are not good grounds to surive for a democracy ... but im getting a bit off topic, history just drags me away. i think you ned to read up quite a bit on that before you attempt make a judgment over this issue.
anyway, iraq - as stated - has no democratic culture
at all, contrary to what germany had. you are comparing a wealthy industrial central european nation with a long modern history and high culture with an underdeveloped, artificially created state made of fucks knows how many ethnic groups - thats just a little off.
Actually he recovered most of his military that was destroyed in his little kuwait incident.
i didnt see a lot of that in action in the war. he had a huge army but poorly equipped obviously .. whats gives? this also applies in terms of the weapons that he obviously had back in 1991. seems like that is all poof.
Exactly the purpose of the strike. Why wait until they are strong enough to resist? What good will that do?
correct from a military strategical point of view...