--no, the US killed hundreds of civilians and drove out the rest from town for a month or more. in the war during the last year, easily more civilians are dead than were killed by Sodom in recent years past. Since the recent past is most deeply engraved in most Iraqis' memories, I'd imagine that comparison is not a little relevant. And the exciting part is this unnecessary and illegal war looks to only bring on more of the same.
Luke writes: Maybe even those occupations would've turned out differently if their had been as many well-known examples of successful insurgency via asymmetric warfare.
--that is the fundamental problem for the would be 'liberators' of Iraq. To accomplished this unsoughtout 'liberation' required the US' capacity to obliterate the 'enemy'. That was not possible given the 'enemy's' not fighting in the early stages of the invasion and disappearing into the woodwork to fight a guerilla war. In order to 'win' in Iraq, the US would have had to either 1) make a major Marshall Plan like investment in Iraq--out of the question given the goal of developing a client regime that will privatize like no tomorrow or 2) bomb the wholly moses out of Iraq to the point where the country's population submitted to liberation--an option that obviously wasn't desirable given the lack of ideological rationale for such a strategy [hence the pointlessness of the Japan, Germany 'models'].
Steve