i think i'll go watch the football match now, down to the local schoolyard. want to come with?

so this random woman quoted in the paper said that she was glad the US troops were pulling out of iraq because she thought we never should have gone over there because "if they wanted freedom badly enough they would have gotten it for themselves".

wha?

c'mon on and be serious. you can agree with US presence in other parts of the world or disagree, and you can even agree with some presences and disagree with others. you can be diametrically philosophically opposed to joining in the various fights for freedom across the globe, or you can be just as strongly in favour of our going out there and getting involved in every major dispute and every petty squabble. you can disagree that when we set out, that we do so with any sort of philanthropic spirit, with any sort of true heart-felt desire to free anyone from the bonds that bind them, with any empathy for the downtrodden, with any thought but power and greed.

and, there, you might be correct.

but one thing you cannot do is say that if these various peoples want freedom badly enough they would get it for themselves. no, see... it doesn't work that way. the whole point of oppression is that it is oppressing.

what about darfur? hell, what about right-next-door cuba? double hell, what about the native tribes of america? well, clearly we are not pure freedom fighters. there has to be something in it for us. but if that's the point that you disagree with then you disagree with our being mercenary, with our selling out to the highest bidder, with our helping only those who can pay us. and, that's a worthy enough thing to disagree with. but you simply cannot say that oppressed people should be somehow sufficient enough to throw off the oppression unaided.

i am not a history scholar. i really only know enough to embarrass myself, but i know that the french (right?) and maybe the spanish (maybe?) helped us americans win our freedom from the oppressive english. we could not do it alone, and we were across a huge ocean! imagine if your oppressors lived, like, next door. or that they weren't conveniently wearing bright red coats and marching in formation across a field, but rather were dressed just like you and were sneaking into your home and raping your daughters.

oh. my. freaking. applesauce.

you cannot expect people to throw off this sort of oppression without some assistance.

is the middle east a wise place to attempt to sort out democracy and broker peace? do the people of iraq deserve our help more than the people of [insert one of a veritable plethora of other oppressed folk here]? can we fix it? should we? do we need to, to preserve our own safety? will the world be a better place? here's a big one -- have we actually accomplished enough that they can now stand on their own in this brave new world we've carved out of the sand together?

time will tell, i suppose. but whether you agree or not that we should have gone and whether you agree or not that we are doing what is good or moral or right and whether you agree or not that we have been successful...

the oppressed cannot gain freedom unassisted - cannot through simply wanting it enough obtain it; nor can those who offer assistance gain freedom on behalf of the oppressed - no matter how much they wish to gain this freedom for those oppressed - if the oppressed do not want freedom for themselves.

even if you think we started this adventure on false pretenses with a hidden agenda; even if you do not think this was a worthy endeavor; even if you do not believe we should spend our time, money, blood, sweat, tears, and very lives to gain the freedom of people in faraway land; even if you think we should not have gone and done it -- you cannot deny these people were oppressed, and you cannot deny they could not have thrown off their oppressor without our help.

[yes, i know... we built the oppressor in the first place. but don't you think going back to depose his regime makes up for that in some wee small way?]

[if you think i don't have my facts straight here, let me remind you that this is my world in which i am the oppressor, you are the oppressed, and i have no empathy. that is to say, if you disagree with me, you can suck it.]