Amen Jack.
It's interesting to me that your portrait of Iraqis treats them as retarded children Mazer. With this attitude that we are their only hope for enlightenment, that only we are equipped to tell them how to live their lives, that we are the only ones who can "listen' to them, diagnose them and prescribe remedies to them, it's really small wonder that they want us the hell out.
It always amazes me on this issue that people seem to be so unable to imagine the shoe being on the other foot--most, I assume, find the scenario ridiculous because they believe our form of government is the ultimate panacea for all the human race's ills, so the idea of an invading force imposing an alternate system on us is just unthinkable. But even if this invading force did have a "better idea" for us, I submit it would be very hard for us to collectively swallow at the barrel of a gun. It would wound our pride, threaten our identity and in general just really piss a whole lot of people off. If Americans got word that some of these supposedly superior people were treating "American detainees" like filthy animals, I think most Americans would vow to fight to the death rather than allow these people to succeed in telling us how to restructure our society.
Yet, instead of granting the Iraqis enough sense to have these kinds of basic human reactions, I guess it's easier to paint them as helpless, clueless little children who just don't know what's good for them. It's illogical in the face of having claimed so vehemently on their behalf that they hated life under Hussein's oppressive regime--apparently they were smart enough to realize that sucked, but when they claim they don't want to be oppressed and controlled by a new, invading, foriegn force, we suddenly have no more empathy for them and figure that we need to just keep killing them until they get it that we are the good guys.
"We've paid for that land with blood"? Sounds like the same logic we used to "pay" for our present country, though I doubt if the dead Native Americans we left in our wake felt they got a deal.
|