Excellent post.

>Your examples - Germany and Japan - fired first and the "conquerors" were able to re-establish those nations. But look at how it came about:
>The Germans and Japanese were convinced by their leaders that they merited wider influence\ownership. They had great armies to back that up. They went ahead and had good success at first. Then they started to lose a few. Years and years of deprivation followed while they tried to re-ameliorate the situation. Nothing worked and they got pummelled worse and worse. Their children were dying, their property was razed, their institutions were dissolved. At the end they had only rubble to hide in as the victors arrived. The people had NOTHING LEFT. The victors arrived with food and clothing and petrol and building materials and order. What are you going to do?... keep fighting them after ALL HAS BEEN LOST?????
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>Now compare this to Palestine's land, which was aggressed from them in the 1967 6-days war. Show me how Israel helped those people. Show me how the Isreali troops were welcomed by the residents. 6 days wasn't near enough time for the PEOPLE to suffer and become near animals. But in the years since it looks like Israel has helped them along that road, to where a party like "Hamas" could be elected.
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>Now look at Iraq. Iraq too was "won" in a short period of time and by troops who had NO BUSINESS BEING THERE. The U.S. has (allegedly) spent billions building physical things, many of which get destroyed shortly after completion. Do you really expect that any 'people' with a smidge of PRIDE are going to accept some invading force even if they promise all kinds of goodness???? Unless they've been ground to near animals first and see no other opption?
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>Now look at Afghanistan. Karzai(sp?) is really the mayor of Kabul, not the leader of Afghanistan! Again great things were promised. Again, anything delivered was quickly turned back to dust once completed. Again you had a fast victory, and again in a place where the people felt you didn't belong (though the rest of the world did). And since the war's instigators were just doing a side-trip to their real goal of Iraq the job was poorly done and troops removed far too soon. The only reason that NATO is even there is at the insistence of the U.S. and as soon as Bin Laden is caught or killed watch the exodus begin.
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>Aggressors, to succeed, have to face a people ground down so bad that even insignificant things look like huge improvements to them. Their PRIDE has to have been SHATTERED. As long as pride is alive you've got a resistance movement. The USSR learned that. The U.S. and UK are learning that.
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>And all that should be clearly obvious to anyone, including you.