The German reunification should be a lesson for people who believe it's easy to change a country and its economy. I remember when the reunification started I

The German reunification should be a lesson for people who believe it's easy to change a country and its economy. I remember when the reunification started I firmly believed that the East would quickly get up to speed once the Western system was applied there. It should be easy and the Easterners would be happy. Turns out that progress was slow despite enormous investments and the Easterners didn't really appreciate that the West completely ignored things that Easterners actually liked (their "achievements" = "Errungenschaften" was a big word). When you consider how difficult the process was/is despite East and West Germany being very close culturally it becomes clear that things like "fixing" and "democratizing" countries like Afghanistan and Iraq are pretty hopeless endeavors. I don't think as Westerner you can even remotely understand the culture and the fact that maybe the people there don't want Western culture.