I've seen numerous reports of American troops deployed in Iraq that went to war full of zeal and sympathy for the Iraqis, especially the children, and then are hurt and surprised to find that their sympathy is not reciprocated. Some of them explained how their good will turned into rage and desire for revenge when they saw their best friends die in battles.
To those soldiers, I only have one question: What kind of morons are you? Let me see if I get this right: your country attacked a much poorer and weaker country that was not and has never been a threat to you. You are bombing their cities and killing their citizens. And yet somehow, you are the aggrieved victims who need to be avenged. How can you not understand, when the consequences of your actions are so immediate, so direct?
The usual comparison with Vietnam is apt in so many ways. Here's an anecdote that will add another brick to the wall. At my workplace there used to be a French woman (who has since retired), middle aged, very nice, who loved to talk to me about Vietnam, because she had an uncle and a brother in law who went there with the French army during the fifties. They used to send her those gorgeous silk blouses, beautifully embroidered by Vietnamese orphan girls in workshops run by French nuns. They told her what a great country it was, how beautiful it was, how nice the population, how great the food, etc... And she in turn wanted to tell me, thinking that I would be pleased to know how much her family enjoyed their stay in my country. And I had to agree with her. Of course, the French led a great life in Vietnam during that period: opulent villas, tons of concubines and servants and endless opportunities to make a fortune exploiting the local resources and the local manpower with the help and the blessing of the French government. Unfortunately, all good things have to end and her uncle had to leave after the Dien Bien Phu debacle. «It's so sad that it had to end that way», she said. «What I still don't understand is why you people hate us when we loved you so much!!»
Um..may be because you were the colonizers and we were the colonized?
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How is it that American GIs are surprised to discover that they are unwelcome in Iraq? What kind of morons are they? Well, they are people who have been systematically misinformed and uninformed all their lives. They believe the crap that they've been told. That's the kind of morons they are.
And when it begins to dawn on them that they are in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, one of the ways to get out of the awful feeling of "I'm wrong" is to substitute the feeling "they're wrong." This is how people operate.
I remember, back in the 70s, an elderly White southern lady, a friend of my mother, was explaining to me the disruption caused to the traditional way of life down there caused by the civil rights movement was all due to outside agitation - "OUR Negroes were happy", she said. On some level she believed this, even though on some other level she knew it wasn't true.
"America, America, God shed His grace on thee!
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea." [gender language as used by original author]
And while we're talking about White people being hard on the colored - let's not leave out Cambodia and Rwanda. White folks (and I is one) have done a LOT of bad things - but we ain't the only ones.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any.
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