"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual." --G.C. Lichtenberg
In World War I, Germany fought all of Europe and Russia to a standstill. Iraq lost a war with Iran's third-rate army. Germany was a modern, industrialized society with some of the best scientific minds and some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world. Saddam has some oil and buys nearly everything else from other countries. Iraq can't even feed itself or build automobiles.
