Gah. I forget how prevalent these "we rebuilt Germany and Japan into democracies" arguments were. Consider this: After the armistices were signed, through our entire occupations of both countries, there was not one US troop killed by German or Japanese resistance. Not one. Simultaneously, we had a troop to population ration fairly close to the counterinsurgency ideal -- which would equal out, in Iraq, to 400,000 or 500,000 occupying troops.
