Before the thread is flooded with thousands of messages defending Israel, let me say the “moral lesson” of this thought experiment is not about Israel, it’s about <B>INTELLECTUAL HONESTY</B>.
Just as I admit the argument made by israeli jews is valid to a certain extent, the american patriots of the USMB can’t simply discard any armed struggle in Iraq, (now or in the future) as terrorism.
If you want to understand how some Iraqis feel about the occupation, just imagine armed russian soldiers patrolling the streets of LA under any of the justifications I provided on a previous post.
You don’t have to agree <B>wholeheartedly</B> on something in order to understand it and even recognise its partial validity within a certain set of values.
I view Palestine through a paradigm based of equal humanity but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand the reasons behind the jewish nationalists’ paradigm. I understand their reasons to oppose the democratisation of Palestine, as described in my thought experiment, and even recognise its partial validity from the point of view of jewish nationalism, even though I don’t fully agree with them.
If american patriots have the right to be outraged by russian troops patrolling the streets of NY or LA no matter how reasonable the reason for the occupation would be, they should at least understand, not agree just understand when an Iraqi patriot is outraged when he sees American troops patrolling Baghdad.
Let’s face reality people:
If the country invaded was the US, nationalist resentment against the occupation would, most probably, override any other political consideration <B>in your mind</B>.
I’ve already stated several times here that political science and blind patriotism simply don’t mix well.
Somewhere along the road you’ll have to decide what you really want to be: a <B>serious</B> political thinker or a super patriotic american clown.
You just can't be both.
No matter how passionately you support your point of view, if you are not willing to accept the valid points made by others, if you can analyse a political situation only from a unidimensional perspective (the perspective of your own country), you’ll soon be reduced to a clown waving the US flag (or any other flag for that matter).
Just as I admit the argument made by israeli jews is valid to a certain extent, the american patriots of the USMB can’t simply discard any armed struggle in Iraq, (now or in the future) as terrorism.
If you want to understand how some Iraqis feel about the occupation, just imagine armed russian soldiers patrolling the streets of LA under any of the justifications I provided on a previous post.
You don’t have to agree <B>wholeheartedly</B> on something in order to understand it and even recognise its partial validity within a certain set of values.
I view Palestine through a paradigm based of equal humanity but that doesn’t mean I can’t understand the reasons behind the jewish nationalists’ paradigm. I understand their reasons to oppose the democratisation of Palestine, as described in my thought experiment, and even recognise its partial validity from the point of view of jewish nationalism, even though I don’t fully agree with them.
If american patriots have the right to be outraged by russian troops patrolling the streets of NY or LA no matter how reasonable the reason for the occupation would be, they should at least understand, not agree just understand when an Iraqi patriot is outraged when he sees American troops patrolling Baghdad.
Let’s face reality people:
If the country invaded was the US, nationalist resentment against the occupation would, most probably, override any other political consideration <B>in your mind</B>.
I’ve already stated several times here that political science and blind patriotism simply don’t mix well.
Somewhere along the road you’ll have to decide what you really want to be: a <B>serious</B> political thinker or a super patriotic american clown.
You just can't be both.
No matter how passionately you support your point of view, if you are not willing to accept the valid points made by others, if you can analyse a political situation only from a unidimensional perspective (the perspective of your own country), you’ll soon be reduced to a clown waving the US flag (or any other flag for that matter).