Hitler was worse than Stalin

[Razgovory]

The US invaded Iraq to force the Iraqis to become capitalist? 

Saddam political party was theoretically socialist right? But part of the plan was to reform them as a capitalist liberal democracy so then they would be just like Germany and Japan.

Right, but that was hardly the inspiration for invading them. There are plently of countries that are not "capitalist liberal democracies" that the US never thought of invading. 

The actual reasons had more to do with the history with Saddam, and wanting him gone.

Well, sort of.  There was a belief amongst Neo-cons that that the way bring peace to the middle east was to impose a liberal capitalist democracy.  Iraq was to be the model.

[derspiess]

True but the Soviet Union occupying Poland and company was not really out of Communist zeal either 

There were certainly some in the US who were presenting this as a way to spread American ideas. It didn't work but that was never our primary strategy to make everybody adopt our way of life. We certainly did not force Russia to become capitalists or liberals of any sort. They pretended to do that on their own.

The neocon element was strong, though.  I think it was a mix of that and wanting to take out a sworn enemy.  I supported (and still support) the invasion based upon the latter.

[Razgovory]

Iraq is a good example as why it would be a terrible idea to impose our system on people.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it requires an enormous amount of effort to change the nature of a country.  Often we are better at influencing a country through economics, culture, etc.  For instance, the US didn't force anything on post-communist Poland, but did influence directly and indirectly the Polish government and economy.

[Eddie Teach]

And now Martinus has a huge variety of pretentious shops and restaurants to frequent. 

[Valmy]

And now Martinus has a huge variety of pretentious shops and restaurants to frequent. 

'Murica!

[Berkut]

True but the Soviet Union occupying Poland and company was not really out of Communist zeal either 

There were certainly some in the US who were presenting this as a way to spread American ideas. It didn't work but that was never our primary strategy to make everybody adopt our way of life. We certainly did not force Russia to become capitalists or liberals of any sort. They pretended to do that on their own.

The neocon element was strong, though.  I think it was a mix of that and wanting to take out a sworn enemy.  I supported (and still support) the invasion based upon the latter.

Indeed - there was certainly an element of "Hey, this is an opportunity to go and make a sea change in another country and show the ME how awesome it is to be a western democracy of some form or another...".

In hindsight, we clearly picked the wrong example country. Iraq was too fragmented and screwed up for it to work.

Need to pick a nation that is actually a nation in and of itself. Like Iran.

[Valmy]

Well it was not like every expert on Iraq was not saying this at the time.

[The Brain]

It's kind of nice that he semi-acknowledges Soviet oppression post-WWII but to call it imposing a "model of development" is an interesting choice of words. 

He'll occasionally acknowledge that the Soviet Union did bad things, but he has to immediately follow up by slinging shit at everyone else.

What is stupid is that the facts immediately contradict his comment.

"After the Second World War, we tried to impose on East European countries our model of development and did it by force"

OK, this is certainly true, the USSR used force to impose their political and economic model on Eastern Europe.

"By the way, Americans are behaving in the same manner, trying to impose their model practically worldwide,"

That is clearly false. American might be trying to impose our model worldwide (it isn't really *our* model per se though), but there is one rather key difference. We aren't doing it by force. Liberal capitalism isn't spread, with very, very few exceptions, by T-62s or M-1s rolling into other countries. Rather, it has spread simply by offering a better alternative than the options.

Iraq never happened.

Do you understand what the word "exception" means?

Whoa! Rage down, dude.