RE: Arab World Stunned by Baghdad's Fall

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 13:39:06 MDT

  • Next message: Keith Elis: "RE: GOV: US Reputation (RE: Arab World Stunned by Baghdad's Fall)"

    --- Amara Graps <amara@amara.com> wrote:
    > Harvey Newstrom:
    > >In reality, there is ample evidence on both sides of this debate,
    > >and none of it is final yet. I can't blame anybody on /either/ side
    > >for believing as they do. We are getting so much propaganda, spin,
    > >false stories, and mistaken stories, that everybody on all sides are
    > >getting plenty of support for their beliefs. I really hope the U.S.
    > >does produce this final official report showing specific smoking
    > >guns. If we don't, we will never be trusted again.
    >
    > I am not sure that the U.S. government will be trusted, even if.
    > It's reputation is damaged for the next many many years (I am
    > guessing for a generation).

    It is my impression that the only people with whom the US govts
    reputation is permanently damaged are those who saw it as damaged long
    prior to our involvement in Iraq, and who use such events as 9/11 to
    berate us rather than sympathize, to scold rather than empathize, and
    to obstruct rather than to understand and accept that those who attack
    us are inherently wrong. I frankly don't give a damn whether such
    individuals feel permanently offended at US behavior. We don't need the
    sympathy, empathy, or cooperation of those who are has-been,
    self-marginalized, self-deluded resentment mongers.

    As Churchill's grandson stated recently, "The French have never
    forgiven us for liberating them." Now I don't think there is any one
    reason. Individuals who resent us have their each individual stories of
    personal misery. Lost grandeur, lost empire, lost respect, whatever the
    reason, they hate us not for what we are or what we do, but how what we
    are and do reflects how they are not now what they once were. They
    blame their own lack of opportunity or potential, caused by the
    calcification and rot of their own cultures, on the fact that so much
    opportunity and potential exists here. It is a zero sum calculus so
    typical of those outside the US, that our eminence must be the cause of
    their decline.

    Whether it is the lost Andalusian past of the romantic Islamic golden
    age (which was far more decadent than the ascetic Wahabists or
    Salafists would like to believe), or the lost memories of various
    european or other empires, be they French, German, Spanish, Russian,
    Chinese, Dutch or Italian, it doesn't really matter. The descendants of
    those who made those nations great once ago have long lived here in the
    US. Cast out by the institutional and bureaucratic barnacles of
    calcified cultures, those who have the blood of creativity, courage,
    and conviction coursing through their veins are who made this country
    great and cast the contrasting sunbeam of truth on the immoral decayed
    and rotting cultural carcasses remaining in their nations of ancestry.

    Claiming to love the American people but dislike our governments
    policies is as dishonest an attitude as to claim to be opposed to the
    war but to support the troops. You can't do both at once, because both
    policy and individual are so intractably joined. While less free
    nations may claim that the policies of their government are not the
    policies of their citizenry, such a claim cannot be made of the US.
    While whole armies recruited by draft and compulsory service cannot be
    charged with guilt of militarism or agreement with the orders of
    leadership cadres, our all volunteer military, from buck private to top
    officer, almost uniformly agrees and supports the need for this war.
    You cannot support these troops if you do not support their support of
    the war, if you are going to be true to your pacifistic principles.

    I suppose if you are a hypocrite as a regular practice it is possible,
    but that is to be expected. A nation which accuses us of fighting the
    war for oil denies that its own opposition is because of oil, despite
    the existence of contracts proving such. Opposition to ending economic
    sanctions against a nation which no longer is led by the tyrant that
    caused them to be enacted is mere poor sportsmanship and pouting.

    It is rather sick to see France, Germany, and Russia opposed to ending
    the sanctions now that Iraq is free, simply because they don't want the
    people to be able to reconstruct themselves. They want things to appear
    as much as though we are an occupying power as possible. They are
    certainly the Axis of Losers now. I suppose they are trying to promote
    themselves to Axis of Just As Evil status...

    =====
    Mike Lorrey
    "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                                         - Gen. John Stark
    "Pacifists are Objectively Pro-Fascist." - George Orwell
    "Treason doth never Prosper. What is the Reason?
    For if it Prosper, none Dare call it Treason..." - Ovid

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