World War II Envy

It has struck me that the neocons' root dysfunction may be a deep-seated envy of the previous generation. Bush Sr. fought in World War II and Bush Jr. had to hear about it all his life — even while he was dodging the Vietnam draft. I imagine similar influences on other folks sympathetic to the neocon worldview. They want to remake the Middle East into modern democratic states, as MacArthur did with Japan. What they don't understand is that Japan and, say, Iraq aren't interchangeable. Japan felt national shame at its defeat, while Iraq was not even a nation but several nations confined within a state, and none of them felt any shame at Saddam's defeat. I don't have a lot more to say here except that I guess this is one chunk of thought in an ongoing series of mine to try and figure what makes these guys say and do stupid things, because the simplest explanation — that they are stupid — is too easy.