The element of hatred between a selected subset of people and the United States is growing exponentially these days. It's been doing so for the past few decades. But now this is different. There used to be a genuine rationale in doing so for both sides in 80s or 90s or even in 2001. It was the slow-healing wound on religious or ideological sentiment that was hurting.
Now, it's not the wound, its the illusion that is blinding people in doing so.
What encouraged me to write this is an email my wife received from a good friend based in Dubai last week. It was a stupid email forward with the subject "No:1 Terrorists in the world". The interesting part is that he has put a disclaimer "Sending as received .. may need confirmation" before the "poison spitting" starts.
I found the list of questions very interesting. I am not a big admirer of US or its foreign policy. Nor I am as crazy a critic has Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore. I am just somewhere in between where it is convenient to distinguish right and wrong, and ignore it without feeling guilt.
Anyways, the questions are pretty close-ended kind, like "Which is the only country that dropped a nuclear bomb?". You are not expected to say "I know, but the circumstance of WWII..". You are expected to just keep repeating "United States" for every such question.
My friend, if you don't endorse these questions or their answers, why are you forwarding it to ~100 friends? This is what I said about the rationale. Many of us don't have a fundamental reason to hate the Americans, but we are expected to do so. Unprovoked hatred has taken full control of our decision making capability.
I thought of spending couple of hours investigating each one of the question and answering them from an impartial stand point. I did some google'ing and figured out that the forwarded email was long back used by leftists to blame Americans .. and now a different set of people are running with the same baton.
I thought for a while if I should post the following link, as it doesn't present an impartial view. Instead it's more of how a pro-republican American would respond.
I liked some of the facts he is quoting and hence finally decided to quote the post -
There are two main escape routes that the guilty try when faced with accusations:
ReplyDelete1. Point a finger at someone else; and claim that he too has done the same - so it's not a big deal after all.
2. Single out a few illogical accusations, and using them prove the ulterior motive of the accuser - this method of reverse accusation works most often.
Admiral Quixote uses both the methods (funny he calls himself so; does he himself realise how quixotic his arguments are??).
I cannot fathom how "liberating" so many countries is in any way related to Hiroshima. (I cannot fathom either why the "liberations" have always been from regimes inimical to american corporate interests, and how in Chile and iran, popular governments were overthrown and dictatorships imposed with US support. Fine job of "liberation", eh??!!)
Would like to comment on each of his idiocies, but a comments' section aint the right place.
And my question to you - if you don't endorse Quixote's arguments, then why do you put it up on your blog (even if with the disclaimer that it is only a pro-GOP response) ?? ;-)
I agree, the mail chain is stupid enough. But your blog doesnt do justice either, by trivialising the accusations (some of which are really serious).
Apologies if what I wrote trivialized the war crimes committed by United States. My intention was not to glorify all what is done in the name of liberating other countries. However, tagging the country "no:1 terrorist" was just over the top as you might agree.
ReplyDeletePS: glad to see that I sparked a bit of controversy here :p
No controversies intended. Yes I do agree with you in that tagging any country as terrorist is immature. To be fair, even India might have done the same things if she were a superpower for 50 odd years.
ReplyDeleteBtw.. I do like the variety of subjects in your posts!!