Posted on 10/08/2006 6:33:32 PM PDT by SandRat
LOL...you aren't ancient, even though the things you read on here can make you feel that way.
I watched a movie the other night, against my best judgement. It was "Munich". Now, I had heard enough about it to decide I did not want to pay the rental fee to see it, but...I heard someone say it wasn't quite the way it was made out to be, soooo...I took a chance.
Big mistake. It is about the Israelis who hunted down the terrorists responsible for the Massacre at the Munich Olympics.
The message of the movie was, striking back at your foe makes you as bad as and inhuman as your enemy that initially attacked you. It really pissed me off, to have that message coming from someone like Steven Spielberg, who SHOULD KNOW BETTER. He did make "Schindler's List", for God's sake. How could he make a movie like "Munich"?
Anyway, the point is...I agree more with you than disagree. In Iraq, this approach may eventually fail. But we can hold our heads up and say we DID try.
The issue isn't whether the world hates or admires us. The issue is whether the ordinary people in the areas around the soldiers hate or admire them. From what I understand, much of our intelligence in Iraq comes from ordinary people whom we have convinced to trust us. Giving out clothes and toys isn't "social work"--it's an essential part of intelligence gathering.
The children are actually the ones whose "hearts and minds" matter, because they are Iraq's future and they will be the ones determining its ongoing relationship with the rest of the world 15 to 20 years hence. So I agree that a part of our military's job is not only to kill or capture the terrorists and other bad guys, but also impress on these children that America is there to help them achieve a decent future for themselves and THEIR children, not to enslave or oppress them. It's a difficult combination of tasks for our military, but I'd bet those who get to work and interact with the children enjoy the opportunity. And they're excellent diplomats and ambassadors for our country.
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