Just how much can an outsider change things in occupied lands?

            Back to underlying assumptions.

            My best examples come from the influence of missionaries.  Many Christian  worship sites, often developed by missionaries, are on torn down older pagan worship sites in conquered lands. Holidays like Christmas and Halloween have some basis in pagan things. Islamic missionaries in Indonesia might not recognize what has evolved as Islamic religious beliefs have integrated with earlier and local animistic type things.  South Korea is a land of Christian missionary steeples, with older religious customs often mixed in.  The Spanish conquests of Central and South American often included destruction of the indigenous population's religious and scientific records, much to our chagrin today.  And even today Islamic zealots destroy Buddhist religious monuments.

            Perhaps what we believe has much to do with what we are taught by our Moms and Dads, and our cultures, and not missionaries, or military occupiers.  Perhaps we go along for awhile with the interlopers, then integrate the new and old thoughts as best we can later.

            Where I live in east Tennessee, I think we would resist all outsiders, even if they worked on nation-building kind of like what the USA is doing in Afghanistan. No matter how well intended, or even ideology related, like the military's latest COIN (counter insurgency) strategy which is well promoted by our present USA political leaders, it sure seems like local people want to do it their way, as dumb as that may be in the short term.

            Even the USA Navy and Marines and State Department did their best in the Banana Wars in the Caribbean and parts of Central America, but did eventually leave, and what do we and the locals left holding the bag have now? How about the Mexican War and the impact on our lives today in 2012? How about the USA Army's effect on the American frontier in its fights with Indians? How about our USA famous General John J. Pershing and his fights with the Islamic Moros in the southern Phillipines?

            So my quick summary is that maybe things take their own course, in the long run.  So are we wasting our time and money occupying anywhere not home?  You decide. Obviously there are short term gains, often, but perhaps long term impacts, too.

            Now we can't tell anyone how to think, but we can dictate behavior. Hence sometimes going to war makes sense, at least in the short term. Then missionary types may have a hard row to hoe when occupying  a foreign land in the long term, and using their method to dominate the conquered. And don't forget the nation builders, too.

            Only time will tell, and it sure seems like we humans keep trying.