Twenty billion dollars of the $87 billion package is likely to be necessary rebuilding Iraq, and $66 billion is for defending it, a figure reflective of the amount it cost to 'liberate' the nation. (Boyle, 2003) According to CNN
Another 90,000 support troops operated out of Kuwait and Qatar. (Vann, 2003) Rather than showing additional support for these troops, the UN continues to stress the tenuous reasons for United States involvement in the region
Secretary of State, After a decade to examine the consequences of America's decision to invade Iraq -- and engage in a massive nation building effort after successfully ousting the brutal Baath Party dictatorship of Saddam Hussein -- it has become abundantly clear that a war fought under false pretenses can never be productive in a geopolitical sense. As foreign policy scholars have observed in the wake of your predecessor's calamitous course of action, "President Bush said that our goal was a unified, democratic Iraq that could govern itself, sustain itself, defend itself, and serve as an ally in the 'War on Terror' & #8230; (but) it's apparent that no part of this goal has been achieved, and that the progress made toward them is fleeting" (Babbin, 2012)
Armies are for winning wars, not building nations. Armies that keep fighting a war they've won, will lose it" (Jonas, 2010)
When the authoritarian regimes of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt were threatened by the revolutionary power of public protest, the State Department and other wings of the federal government offered indirect assistance and moral support to the dissenters, while effectively tabling the option of direct military intervention for fear of repeating the mistakes made in Iraq. Many international foreign policy experts agree with the prevailing assessment that "the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have diminished the United States' political will, military capability, and diplomatic credibility to conduct future humanitarian interventions" (Kurth 2005, 87), but American influence on the Egyptian and Libyan "Arab Springs" cannot be understated
This distinction between the role and mission of our armed forces is fundamental to this debate, because as a nation founded on the ideal of democratic freedom, becoming a force of occupation does not align with our military's legitimate objectives. As one prominent foreign policy journalist observed in 2007, when the Iraqi insurgency had reached its bloody crescendo of suicide bombings and assassination attempts -- "the moment the United States invaded the way it did, and occupied the nation as boorishly as it did, the outcome couldn't have been any different than it is now" (Tristam)
Protests have even spread to Burkina Faso, Nigeria and other West African states that have usually not been particularly responsive to the popular will. In Burkina Faso, even though it received little international coverage, demonstrators were outraged when police beat a high school student to death and began to demand "the departure of the president, Blaise Compaore, who has been in office for 24 years" (Illy and Omobolaji 2011)
This feel and ambiance of this university was not unlike the hundreds of other universities that I have visited in the U.S. And around the world" (McKinney 2011)
Although the Arab Spring did arouse hopes that real democracy would become possible for the first time in these countries, ensuring such a transition will be problematic at best. Before the uprisings and revolutions began, most of the Arab countries were Limited Access Orders (LAOs) that "incorporated only a very limited range of organizations in the dominant coalition -- ruling families, the army, perhaps one or two loyal political parties, as well as religious organizations and business firms that allied with the political elite or at least stayed out of politics" (Webb 2011)
In the same way, almost all Americans today are unaware of the real dangers behind the Iraq debacle. (Clarke, 2004) It must be noted that when the United States supports a democratically illegitimate government in Iraq, or when it conducts several counter insurgency operations in Iraq that end up killing numerous civilians, in the hope of eliminating more terrorists and Al Quaeda extremists, the result may be that many terrorists may indeed be eliminated
The transformation in Japan was infinitely smoother, and also much quicker than in Germany, although at the end, Japan was indeed less integrated with its neighbors. (Dobbins; McGinn; Crane; Jones; Lal; Rathmell; Swanger; Timilsina, 2003) This undertaking by the United States offered certain valuable lessons to the entire world, some of them being: it is a fact that democracy can indeed be transferred and inculcated into non-Western societies
It is an important process that involves the people of the state, with the innate purpose of making sure that the "state remains feasible and viable and also stays politically stable, in the long run." (Nation Building: Wikipedia) Nation Building can use either propaganda or publicity to promote the desired results, or it may use major infrastructure development to promote and foster harmony and stability in the political process, so that social harmony, as well as economic growth is achieved
citizens in America, yet again. (President Addresses Nation discusses Iraq, War on Terror) Although the images that are being broadcast of these efforts may be bloody and macabre, and many people may ask if all these sacrifices on the part of the U
In 2004, and the president George Bush subsequently defended these interrogation practices, that led to the abuse of prisoners, by stating that it was a part of the investigative process, and in fact, he also lobbied strongly against a Congressional drive to outlaw torture. (Reid, 2005) The U