Greedy, Tambourine, dis the president all you like, I won't stop you. But that wasn't the point of this essay. Mr. Reeves wasn't attacking Bush, he was using him as an example. He wasn't bashing American patriotism, he didn't decry the evils of occupation, and he hasn't accused anybody of revising the history books. This essay is a warning, not an argument. "Not only do the occupied inevitably come to hate the occupiers, the occupiers come to hate the occupied." So far this is the only logical reason I have heard for bringing our soldiers home. The soldiers are there to keep the peace while Iraq rebuilds, and Richard Reeves obviously understands that attitude. "We are, more often than not, relatively decent people in war and occupation." He isn't comparing our soldiers to Com. George Dewey's marauders, but he is suggesting that if we don' take care then history may repeat itself.
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