![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Dear" Islamic Militants
If you really want the US to leave Iraq, you need to help rebuild your country, your infrastructure, and your government, not threaten and kill foreigners. Really, the more you threaten, kidnap, blackmail, sabotage, destroy, and kill, the longer we will feel that we have to stay - our pride demands it. The more violence you put forward, the more ticked off we will get, and the more troops will come in, the more homes will be destroyed, the more visceral retaliation we will engage in. You want us to leave? Be nice and peaceful, part of the international community, and no one will be able to justify keeping troops there. It's simple, really.
Realize you would have many more people sympathizing with you if you weren't so quick to shed random blood. If you act like all you understand is vicious violence, that is all you will get. If you wanted to get our attention, you got it, but it will not be the kind that benefits you. Martyrdom is a dead end, and the way to gain allies is not to kill their friends and countrymen. Quit giving Bush and the neo-cons excuses to impose more "pax americana". Sheesh.
Realize you would have many more people sympathizing with you if you weren't so quick to shed random blood. If you act like all you understand is vicious violence, that is all you will get. If you wanted to get our attention, you got it, but it will not be the kind that benefits you. Martyrdom is a dead end, and the way to gain allies is not to kill their friends and countrymen. Quit giving Bush and the neo-cons excuses to impose more "pax americana". Sheesh.
no subject
After all, they are pissed at the USA, not Britain, and it's not because they can't tell the differance, because they can. British troops got welcomed, and for awhile at least, were having a slightly easier time of it.
Face it, America screwed up during the late 80's and 90's, on the diplomatic front. We're all paying for it now. [I remember remarking at the time, when the Taliban kicked the Russians out that I doubted it would stop there.]
no subject
I don't dispute that the recent actions by the US are the direct cause. Of course they are.
Similarly, they can tell the difference between Britain and the US, but they don't see much difference, culturally, between the two.
My intended point was that there is a cultural history of (i.e. 'predisposition toward') distrusting the English-speaking folk, dating back to WWI. Recent actions on the US's part feed into that prejudicial distrust, and serve only to reinforce and intensify it. Provide fuel to smoldering embers, and - voila! Flame.
As to the US's miserable history when it comes to foreign policy: You're preaching to the choir. I've alternated between wincing and ranting for years about it. We've been on the wrong track at least</> since Regan, and I could make a case for us starting to go off the rails as early as Kennedy.