As always, words are important, because they can easily be turned into weapons that boomerang on those who use them inappropriately. Wrong analogies have already led America to disaster in Iraq, which had nothing in common with Germany or Japan after World War II – the parallel that some in the Bush administration used in arguing that democracy could be made to sprout in former dictatorships through occupation.
像通常所表现出的一样，人们说的话是非常重要的，因为它们会非常容易地变成反过来伤及那些不恰当地说这些话的人的武器。错误的类比已经把美国引向在伊拉克的灾难，这与布什政府的某些人辩解民主可以通过占领以前的独裁国家来在该国生根发芽而常常拿出来举例的二战后的德国或日本没有任何相似之处。