Welcome to Baghdad, Collaborators!
BEIRUT — In a comment in a “previous post”:https://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000834.php, Farid said:
I have a friend living abroad who expressed to me exactly what you just did. Pre-election, Americans were deemed to be helpless bystanders of a government who has taken them hostage with its own agenda. Now they are seen as collaborators with it.
This comment resonated strongly with me personally because the insurgents in Iraq see all Americans/foreigners there, including we journalists, as collaborators with the U.S. occupation. I worry that the endorsement of the American people of the last three years will extend this attitude to the rest of the world. (Of course, “some people”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/ “don’t give a damn”:http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/index.php?p=425 about what the rest of the world thinks.)
While, obviously, the French aren’t equivalent to Iraqi insurgents, despite the political rhetoric of Crawford. However, the feeling that everyone hates you and sees you as an active agent of their suffering is a feeling I know well; most of the people reading this blog probably don’t.
If the world’s populace now sees the American people as “collaborators” with the Bush administration, welcome to Baghdad. Trust me, you won’t like it.
Allbritton’s A Mensch
First, an apology–I left out a link to Chris Allbritton’s post on the election.
He noticed my trackback, though, and wrote a fine post that gets the essence of what I’m saying. (He disagrees with my position, but understands it and articulates i…
If the world’s populace now sees the American people as “collaborators” with the Bush administration, welcome to Baghdad. Trust me, you won’t like it.
Back to Iraq 3.0
Collaborators…
I feared that this would happen. Chris from Back to Iraq writes from Baghdad that we have now been placed in a Catch-22 sort of situation. We, those of us who are aware that we are not alone in the