Ninth Tuesday Topic
Well more foreign soldiers have now been killed in Iraq than were killed in the 9/11 attacks.
While there are obvious distinctions in the manner of death and status of the dead (civilian vs. military), the fact remains that each dead person leaves a gaping and torturous hole in the world of the people they leave behind.
Could you imagine politicians leveling the same rhetoric against the Iraq War that was leveled against 9/11?
Do you feel that those responsible for perpetrating the war have any sense of this responsibility they bear?
Labels: Tuesday Topics
3 Comments:
I'm confused by your term "foreign soldiers".
Do you not mean "American" or "Coalition" soldiers?
Or does it refer to our troops as in foreign to Iraq?
Yes, it means foreign to Iraq. It's in the same sense that "foreign combatants" appears in the OMBFP pledge.
In my opinion, one of the best ways to engage people to change their perspective about this war (and other similar issues of political compassion) is to challenge them to shed their natural nationalistic biases. Americans have a shocking tendency to assume everything from an American perspective, and if they see it as "us" in Iraq, it's hard to understand that the Americans and others are actually foreign occupiers.
Using consistent language to illuminate what's really going on helps get people to confront the realities they might rather oversimplify.
Thanks. After several readings I was leaning in that direction.
As you say we have a tendency to think of things as "Us" and "Them" without realizing that we can in fact be "Them"
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