From: Cory Przybyla (recherchetenet@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Mar 27 2003 - 18:50:07 MST
--- Damien Broderick <damienb@unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> At 09:56 PM 3/26/03 -0800, Cory Przybyla wrote that
> he has:
>
> >no clue what Iraqis of any slant actually do feel
> >about this war outside of the conflicting forces of
> >the press, the government, and potentially fake
> >web-logs. But certainly, they could view it, [as
> >American imperialism, western islam-hatred,
> >religious war, etc...]and [this]
> >might shed some light on why US soldiers were
> captured
> >and held prisoner (and maybe tortured).
>
> I've been wondering how Jews in the Nazi camps would
> have reacted had
> Allied bombers and artillery unintentionally killed
> a few hundred of the
> survivors in setting them free. (For all I know this
> actually happened.)
For them to have an idea who bombed them, the captors
would have shown some sign, running in a panic,
setting up a defense, etc...maybe it would have even
been a good thing to have the camps bombed in their
perspective resulting in SOME deaths as opposed to all
deaths, or best case scenario, nailing the guards
while they were in the confines of a semi-bomb proof
gas chamber (presuming they could escape afterwards)?
My intial reaction is they wouldn't remember any
bitterness against the allies given what they were
exposed to. Maybe I'm wrong, but certainly I don't
muse about this much (not my being wrong, but how they
would have reacted).
> I
> suspect they'd have regarded it as the tragic but
> mysterious will of God,
> and been grateful for their escape from Hitler and
> his lunatics. The Iraqis
> apparently aren't reacting that way *at all*.
> Probably they're all paid
> actors sworn to personal Hussein service.
Does Iraq really have (errr, did...have) that much
money? Certainly not all have been subjected to the
brutalities? Wasn't the gassing directed at the
Kurds? Sure the laws are pretty awful, they hold no
real regard for women's rights, but nothing unusual
from a historical standpoint comparing to many
countries that defended their leaders. I'd imagine
there's physical limits to how brutal a dictator can
be anyway (they can't watch everyone, they have to be
generous enough to some for them to enforce their
ways, etc). And, just like some claim, "if you don't
break the laws, you have nothing to worry about" ,add
the clause "...and you're race/gender/family, etc
aren't previously hated, nor have you developed
enemies in power" and you probably have the same
situation in mostly any of the worst of countries.
The truly psychotic dictators probably don't last
(we'll watch Turkmenistan) nearly as long as vile
(I've found from accidental typing, that this anagram
of the word evil, can be substituted for it in almost
all cases), calculating ones.
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