I see greater parallels between the middle east and the Filipino campaign during the last three years of the Spanish-American War--and continuing for about ten years after--during the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations--fraught with some of the most indefensible and hideous (but nonetheless American-celebrated) atrocities imaginable, and which Rudyard Kipling "serenaded" with some of the most sickening imperialist propaganda of the last two centuries.

Said atrocities were so horrific Samuel E. Clemens--who was initially in favor of the war, mind you--remarked: "The United States should change its flag from the Stars and Stripes to the Skull and Crossbones."

I suspect he'd have similar opinions of America's machinations of fear and loathing in Iraq and Afghanistan.