Ever since the Iraq conflict started I thought, gee, Vietnam. And wondered, do we ever learn? The situation is frighteningly similar in some respects. We entered Vietnam to oust a regime we did not like and found ourselves not much better than that regime. Have you seen Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola - the film discusses in brutal detail what we did in Vietnam.
In WWII, did you know that we brought mustard gas over? Now the Germans refused to use mustard gas, because Hitler had been gassed in the first World War and was against it. The Americans used it and in an attack on an Italian Submarine, mustard gas was released and killed everyone on the Italian Sub and in the nearby village in a horrendous and torturous fashion. Also in WWII, we had Japanese Internment camps, where our country placed Japanese-Americans behind barbed wire as prisoners, because they happened to have relatives from Japan.
These pictures made me flinch when I saw them and I wished I hadn't. But they did not surprise me. Nor do I think for a moment that they are indicative of all of the soliders behavior over there. What I see is well something Joseph Conrad wrote about in Heart of Darkness and Joss Whedon delves into in his stories - that when we fight monsters we must be very careful we don't become them. The line is thinner than we think.
Also, when you get the chance? Check out ginmar, this is a woman solider in Iraq whose been posting what is going on over there in her livejournal and her dispatches show a more humane side to the action and remind us that both exist.
Actually it reminds me of the Vietnam War
wondered, do we ever learn? The situation is frighteningly similar in some respects. We entered Vietnam to oust a regime we did not like and found ourselves not much better than that regime. Have you seen
Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola - the film discusses in brutal detail what we did in Vietnam.
In WWII, did you know that we brought mustard gas over? Now the Germans refused to use mustard gas, because Hitler had been gassed in the first World War and was against it. The Americans used it and in an attack on an Italian Submarine, mustard gas was released and killed everyone on the Italian Sub and in the nearby village in a horrendous and torturous fashion. Also in WWII, we had Japanese Internment camps, where our country placed Japanese-Americans behind barbed wire as prisoners, because they happened to have relatives from Japan.
These pictures made me flinch when I saw them and I wished I hadn't. But they did not surprise me. Nor do I think for a moment that they are indicative of all of the soliders behavior over there. What I see is well something Joseph Conrad wrote about in Heart of Darkness and Joss Whedon delves into in his stories - that when we fight monsters we must be very careful we don't become them. The line is thinner than we think.
Also, when you get the chance? Check out
to the action and remind us that both exist.