Yes, we're all guilty of that. I know that when it was my time to pull the trigger on people, I ended up hating and, at the same time, commiserating with the NVA we fought. I hated them because they scared me and they hunted me and my buddies. I commiserated with them because they lived like we lived, they were scared like we were and they suffered and died just like we did. I became sure that, like us, they had no say in the thing; they just went where they told them and fought to stay alive. In the end my head disagreed with my heart.
I think because I saw them up close and saw them die with the same looks on their faces that we had, I came to understand that the real enemies were the people pulling the strings. They, by the way, weren't anywhere around the dying. It's a lot easier to justify a war when someone else is dying in it.
Now, when I see that missile go off and all those civilian body parts in order to kill someone that "might" have been there, I can see what the consequences will be. Every one of the dead has a family, friends and fellow nationalists that empathize with him or her.
I think you're the kind of man that, if you were an Iraqi and some of the dead were yours, would pick up that AK-47 and kill some Americans. You might even be the kind of man who would go underground, make a plan and get even by killing the families of some of those that killed yours. I think I'd be that kind of man, too. That's how the cycle grows and that's why Sharon and Bush are wrong in their heavy handed, "kill a bunch of them until they stop" approach. |
