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