In this rather odd passage Josh Marshall records his exasperation with an analogy being drawn between the occupation of Iraq and the post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan:
[T]here's one distinction between the case of Germany and Japan and Iraq today that gets far too little mention. It's not a matter of culture or religion. It is the fact in the aftermath of World War II, both Germany and Japan had been conquered by the United States and her allies in... wars of aggression that Germany and Japan had started. The civilian populations of each country, whatever their war guilt, had experienced shattering levels of violence and privation in the final years of the war. And both countries were immediately faced by nearby hostile powers they feared much more than the United States. There are almost countless differences between the two historical situations, either separate from these points or growing out them. But taken together, these three factors explain a great deal of why our occupation of Iraq lacks both the legitimacy and the acceptance we enjoyed in those two countries.Aside from the fact that in the course of explaining it he turns his one distinction into three, Marshall overlooks that the 2003 invasion wasn't entirely new business, with issues unresolved from 1991 when Iraq did precisely start a war of aggression. He also fails to explain why the legitimacy or otherwise of occupation should rest on the circumstance of the 'shattering levels of violence and privation' suffered by the civilian population. Does he want to say that, had the US and its allies in Iraq been responsible for causing more shattering levels of violence and privation, this would have increased the legitimacy of the US occupation? Finally, pointing to differences doesn't entirely distract attention from similarities: in Iraq as in Germany, the US and its allies got rid of a murderous regime. It's relevant.