How so? We crushed their regimes and forced the establishment of a democratic government. And while you can point to a brief history of democracy in Germany, you can't in Japan.
Quite right. Japan and Germany are nothing alike. My point was that the argument is made that one cannot force democracy in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. And that this argument is countered with the cases of Germany and Japan.
Just like Germany and Japan are nothing alike. So are Japan and Afghanistan/Iraq not alike. Actually even Iraq and Afghanistan differ.
The japanese people, at least most of them, were willing to absorb western culture. Why this is exactly is still a mystery to me. But the attitude from the people in the middle east is way way different.
As for Germany, I guess it only came to exist as it is now when Germany was united in 1990. What is now germany has existed in different countries and different feudal areas if you go back even further.
I guess one can say the same thing about the US. First off, the US isn't a country like most countries. They are a unified group of states. The borders of the US have also changed. Part of Mexico has been annexed, Alaska has been bought. Hawai has been annexed. Philiphines has been annexed and given back. Oceania has been fought over against Japan. Etc etc. But all this is irrelevant for the point made, whoever made it I forgot. Surely Charlemange has his german empire, or rather holy roman empire

, before the new world was officially discovered. But like Voltaire said: "The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire." So I guess you are right after all...