Here’s a good illustration for Charley Reese’s column, featured on AntiWar.com today:
United States aircraft dropped leaflets on the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, warning residents they will lose $102-million (about R637-million) in rebuilding funds if they do not halt attacks and allow US troops to enter freely.
One mistake that seems to be a permanent feature of our foreign policy is mirror-imaging. So many American politicians, most of them poorly educated and ignorant of other people and their cultures, tend to think other people are just like us. A great many are not.
Lyndon Johnson failed in Vietnam because he thought he could treat the Vietnamese the same way he treated members of the U.S. House and Senate. Johnson always used a stick and a carrot. Vote with me, and you’ll get pork-barrel rewards; vote against me, and I’ll find a way to punish you. That worked with American politicians, most of whom are nothing more than officeholders with “for sale or rent” signs on their foreheads.
Johnson told the North Vietnamese, make peace, and I’ll give you billions of dollars in American aid; don’t make peace, and I’ll bomb you. Unfortunately for Johnson, the North Vietnamese, whatever their other faults, were not for sale, nor were they willing to succumb to threats. They wanted to unify their country, and they were willing to fight as long as necessary to achieve that. As it turned out, we were not willing to fight as long as necessary to prevent it. So, despite billions of dollars, despite 57,000 dead, despite a quarter of a million wounded, Vietnam is today a unified communist country.
President George W. Bush has offered a $25 million reward for Osama bin Laden. He thought, apparently, that like most Americans, the Afghans and Pakistanis were for sale. Despite Afghanistan being one of the poorest countries in the world, the American millions have not produced a single traitor willing to rat out bin Laden.
Let’s face it – we have become a secular and materialistic society. The two kinds of people we have real trouble believing actually exist are people of true religious faith and people to whom honor means more than money.
This shouldn’t be such a hard thing to understand.