The Quiet American
I just finished watching 'The Quiet American'. I read the book about a year ago, but the movie made me think more. I probably read the book at the same time that I was reading 3 others (as I usually do) so I didn't get it.
Now - I'm going to be completely honest in this post and I welcome responses, educations, rebuttals. Because I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of politics, particularly the politics of the military and war, is small.
But I still have questions. What's with America? Can we just not leave anything alone? Stopping communism appears to be the reason we were in Vietnam so early and why troops were sent over officially. But why? Was a communist Vietnam that much of a threat to our existence? Is a non-democratic Iraq that much of a threat to our existence? Is it really our goal to live on a democratic planet with all countries the same? WHy can't there be differences in governing? Who's to say that our morals are the ones that should be imposed? When is the line crossed between assistance and direction? Can't we just let things lie as they are? Or - if we are going to have a hand in everything - do we have to make up reasons to go, make up justifications for our actions?
It's just confusing to me. Am I suposed to just trust that the people in Washington are making deicisons correctly? Or that they have in the past? When is war ever justified?
posted by Katie @ 1:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Katie,
I got two things for ya - I meant to post the first on your other entry about Lance going to Aus. I had a dream the other night that I saw Lance Armstrong walking into a hotel or a store and I'm trying to wave to him and say hi and talk to him, but he's really busy and he keeps walking with his assistant ignoring me. Finally I stop and a few paces behind him to right and I saw, "I had testicular cancer." - then he turns around and looks at me and says, "Hi."
That dream made me think about Lance and how many people probably send him letters everyday and also how he meets people - as in, I think sometimes in sobs, whether someone is a survivor or not - it's just such an emotional thing and it could be hard to deal with that all the time.
Your question about governing preference in other nations is a good one. Why do we care, why is it any of our business, and why does it matter? My limited understanding of this comes from the history and Sosh (polysci) classes I took at school. The main idea presented in those classes was that generally Democratic nations get along with and don't go to war with other Democratic nations. From this idea we can see why we would want other nations to follow this governing system from a peace/war standpoint. The other reasons fall into the category of lack of available freedoms (religious, determining one's own destiny, commerce - who to trade with) under other governmental systems, specifically communism (as was practiced in Russia and Asia) and dictatorships. Dictatorships are highly efficient, but they aren't fair and eventually (or right away) one group of people usually gets exploited or held down. The biggest threat from communism came from it spreading and getting rid of our way of life. Communism didn’t work so great as a long term sustainable system (the same argument could possibly be made for capitalism) so more and more areas were recruited to keep natural resources coming flowing. Communism (again as was practiced in Russia and Asia) was really scary from Korea, to Vietnam, to Cuba, to the unprecedented arms buildup (which is actually something Ron Dellums was witness to and talks about in his book). I think the scariest thing was just the absolute holdout by both sides. There was no compromise (in the beginning) – we didn’t want communism in our political system (which led to greater espionage on their part) and they didn’t want democracy in their system (which led to suspicion and mistrust – and espionage on our part) all of which led to conflict at different times. The odd issues now are that we’re dealing with Communist nations (China) where they have also begun to embrace capitalism – mostly due to survival reasons – which makes us trade with them (one reason to change them down), we’re not at war with them and we probably won’t be soon (another reason down), but the people (which of course China is the officially called “People’s Republic of China”) still don’t have all the same freedoms/rights we consider inalienable, so some tension exists. How this fits in with other areas of conflict – I think you have to get more into economics for that.
-Doug
Hey Dougie! I was hoping you'd respond - you and Dad are my resources for this stuff! I like your argument. As soon as I posted this, I came up with some of the same stuff you did. Oppression, in any form is abhorrent. And yes, democratic nations do tend to get on with other democratic nations. So I can understand that stuff theoretically, but it's tough when you look at what war really is, so much death and violence and sadness. It's not a light thing to enter into, that's for sure.
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