Years ago, near the end of the first George Bush administration, I had a conversation with a very dear military friend about the people who flee to the United States from their own countries. It’s so long ago now, I can’t remember which country we were talking about, though it could have been any one of dozens.
He said, effectively, that rather than come here, they should take control of their own destinies. If they were truly unhappy with their lives under whichever system they had, then those people should fight back… and then we would help them.
How, I wondered? Their government has all the power and weapons. They can’t fight with sticks and stones against military might.
We couldn’t get across that gap; his answer was a shrug, while I couldn’t shake my mental image of peasants shot down by militias.
We can’t do it for them, he said.
That friend is dead now, one of the undiscussed after-they-come-back casualties of the Iraq War, but I think of him often. He’s most often in my thoughts, of course, when I’m telling Adorable Child (AC) about her Daddy — but that’s not the only time.
When the Palestinians exercised democracy, for instance, and elected Hamas to a majority position, I wanted to ask him whether that was what he meant. Were they not taking charge of their own destinies?
He died in 2003, well before the situation in Iraq had devolved to today’s level of madness and chaos. What, I wonder, would he think of it all now?
Conversations with a friend
Leave a Reply
Read Next
Finally, some good news to cheer the day (CNN): A Saudi wing of al Qaeda called for attacks on U.S. oil sources across the world, saying targets should not be limited to the Middle East and listing Canada, Venezuela and …
Evidently Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the new al-Qaeda honcho in Iraq, is feeling a need to assert himself, and he’s started with the abduction, brutal torture, and despicable beheading of two soldiers: Two US soldiers, missing for three days since their …
Sure enough, the minute I say I’m going to be offline for a few days, something happens. This, though, is a really big “something”: SPIEGEL: Would you hazard a prediction as to when most of the US troops will finally …
Have you been following this story? (MSNBC) U.S. military officials tell NBC News they had “high-level” Taliban fighters in their gunsights during a July reconnaissance flight but decided not to fire. The decision to pass on the target angered some …
One of the unspoken assumptions we’ve got is that when people have self-determination, they’ll decide to do things that make sense to us, and that complement our interests. As we see in many, many countries, that’s not actually true. The Palestinians/Hamas example is a good one.
As for saying, “They should stay home and fix their country,” well, I always think of how we prioritize our needs. I’m sure everybody would like to do that. Of course, making sure that you and your family can survive and are free of persecution is a bit higher on the list for everyone – including Americans.
It’s just way too easy for an American, sitting here with all kinds of guaranteed freedoms, to suggest that to somebody facing the barrel of a gun.
People will always come to this country because the standard of living is so much higher than most and the government, however much we complain, is much better than so many out there. That said, I can see some of what your friend meant. There will always be a country out there that if only there was a strong armed force to counter the one there, then those people could start over and maybe have a better governing system. The key here is that there will always be one. Other countries shouldn’t take a number and wait patiently on the US to come fix things up. Every few decades we get the grand idea that fixing other countries is what we should be doing, but it is only a success when the native people can collectively agree on what success will look like. Our use of force and money can only fix so much no matter how much we want it to.
As far as situations like Hamas, I can understand people liking something that promises to protect you and to provide you with food. When your alternative is something that has not guaranteed that, then you go for what will. And keep in mind that people in non-western countries often don’t think of their government choice as something to be stuck with forever. I’m sure they don’t think Hamas is what will be there for 200 years. But it is providing them with what they want for now.