http://thinkprogress.org…
Amanda Terkel

Dave Noon pulls out a passage from a new piece by the National Review’s Andy McCarthy on why Iraqis should be more grateful to the United States:

Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.

Matt Yglesias responds: “Because, of course, historically people have welcomed being invaded and occupied by a foreign power whose actions lead to years of chaos, a huge civilian death toll, and millions of displaced people.”