Liberating the "Noble people of _____" We liberated the good people of Afghanistan ... er ... okay, we didn't get OBL or Omar, and the Taleban is regrouping, "Al Qaeda" is regrouped, and the liberation doesn't reach more than a few miles from the capitol. But we liberated the good people of Afghanistan. We liberated the good people of Iraq. In addition to days of orgiastic looting, we also see heavy concerns that the good people of Iraq will replace Hussein's faux-Sunni regime with a strong, if not militant Shi'ite state. Proposal: Drop the crap about the nobility of people. They're people, they deserve human rights and respect, even in the face of their own violations. It's just that people are people, problems can be solved, and why is it that the noble people of this or that nation aren't helping their own noble cause as much as we might think they should? Perhaps our liberating expectations are too narrow? Perhaps we might consider a reviled, long-dead anarchist: Liberty will not descend to a nation; a people must raise themselves to liberty. (Emma Goldman) What to do, what to do ...? Forced liberty is no freedom at all. Perhaps it's time to show our American nobility, and not our American might. We can't just yell at people and pop a few rounds in the air and expect them to know exactly what we want them to do. And we certainly can't kill the people of these nations for being inconvenient to our PR machine. But the new American Imperium is turning into a morbid joke faster than even I would have thought. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Before Nu-Colonialismtm goes stale, the Busheviks desperately need another Attack on America. But how many times can America be distracted with the Next Crisis, until we start demanding that at least one be effectively addressed before moving on? How many times can American leadership say "hit me" before the American public realizes the mounting gambling debt, and folds? I wonder, and I worry.
Lucky streak I'm not worried that Americans will fold. They enjoy bluffing too much. But I'm worried that they don't know what the stakes are, and might even have some serious questions about which game they're playing, and what to do about one-eyed jacks. I'm just worried about the day the otherwise conservative someone or another somewhere takes what he thinks is a cheap-shot in the middle of a tax fight and then Americans will wake up. If New York gets hit enough, the people of that city might decide to ask the executive to stop asking to take on all comers. Bush doesn't like the North Korea situation because he'd rather be dwarf-tossing. (Take that in the literal, the figurative, or the sexually implicit, as necessary.) :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The problem is we can and are doing this. Of coures you're right in your description of the situation, but I don't believe the motivations behind the US' actions are simply a misguided desire to free people and stop terror. The people behind this war didn't really ever intend to americanize Iraqis, that would be expensive, they really don't care what they do or what happens to them as long as they're not bothering american interests. The US attacked Iraq for a number of reasons, to distract from our failure in afghanistan and the domestic situation, to boost Bush's approval ratings, to procure oil, have a better foothold in the region, etc...I dont' think freeing people had anything to do with it.
Well, true Well, true. But where I say we can't is if we want to pretend that we're the good guys, that we have any real merits to offer the world, or that we should "lead" the world in any ethical, moral, or similarly-qualified capacity. In the end this is part of the reason why wars don't seem to work. Consider: - Oppressed people under criminal regime - Invasion to liberate good people suffering under criminal regime - Given their country, the people enact a new criminal regime The people of Iran toppled Shah Reza Pahlavi because he was a tyrant. They merely installed a new tyrant. The problem is that we cannot continue to force nations to Americanize to any particular extent; if we expect American seeds (e.g. ideological foundation) to grow, we must create a fertile field in which to plant. That means cooperation, economic assistance, educational opportunities, and, above all else, the one thing that seems to lack in Americans of the present day: good faith. We can certainly continue to kill people for dishonest reasons, and we can continue to pretend we're doing the world a service. But at some point we will have to answer to the world, and it is upon that consideration that I say we cannot do those things. I'm quite sure I'm repeating a couple of familiar points. Forgive me, I include them for others who might be following the early discussion. :m:, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I think you're right, I just want to point out that I also think that for our government to do otherwise would be contradictory to its nature. Imperialist wars such as the war on afghanistan and the war on iraq are not merely about americans vs. iraqis or even western world vs. eastern world, they are about rich vs. poor..i know this is an oversimplification, but it is true for all intents and purposes. If the whole world is run by either capitalist plutocracies or brutal dictators installed by the plutocracies, its not that we'll have to answer to the rest of the world so much as we'll have to answer to the oppressed people worldwide. The truth of the matter is that the the average American soldier fighting Iraqis has more common interest with the people he is killing than with the people he is doing the killing for.
