Occupation of Iraq

Jane Galt writes "as a matter of national security, we might want to explore why our army basically is not up to the task of occupying a small country for more than a few months."

The reason is that we are too nice. If the Army of the Roman Empire were in our situation it would tell the city of Baghdad to behave or be obliterated. Chances are it would behave.

What we can't do, and probably no army in the history of the world could have done is to put down extreme civil unrest in a foreign nation without using crushing "uncivilized" violence or at least the credible threat of employing such violence.