Hypothetical here

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

Let's say another, bigger country, like Russia (pretend they are militarily superior to the US for the sake of this argument) said to the US "Heeeeey, your leader is a total jerk and fuckwad! We think you were behind the hostage taking and killing a few months back! It was horrible! You have weapons of mass destruction! (note: of course that would be true in our case) We're gonna come in there and take your leader out because we think you are a HUGE threat to peace in the world and to US!"

And then they came over, but instead of just taking out bush and getting rid of our WMDs, they continued to fight us, killing average American citizens, and bombing cities and shit. And the whole time, they are telling us they are making us free, but we aren't even safe enough to walk down the street and our kids' schools are all gone and we only have electricity a few hours a day and running clean water is a pretty iffy deal most of the time.

Meanwhile some Americans decide to start fighting back.

How would you feel? Regular American citizens, in this scenario, have lost about 150,000 to the bombs and bullets of the Russians who are "liberating" us.

Would you fight to defend your family? Would you try to flee? How would you feel about the soldiers who are, after all, only trying to free us and let us have democratic elections (wow how richly ironic, eh?)?

[Emily Jane]

1. People don't...

...see that this is what we're doing in Iraq.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

3. Ok

but I said it was a hypothetical. How would you react to the questions I posed?

[DenverDem]

6. Ignorance is no excuse.

Willful ignorance makes you a collaborator in these war crimes.

That makes 59,054,087 amerikkkan war criminals, give or take a few "votes".

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. That's actually hard to answer as a hypothetical.

Since I'm pretty confident BushCo are total jerks and fuckwads. I can't get around the feeling that I'd be grateful if someone would liberate us from his clutches.

No, not seriously. I understand your hypothetical and I even tried it on some of my relatives around the time Bush triumphantly declared an end to major combat operations. "But that's different." was the whine I heard back. Unfortunately, "it won't happen to me" consumes their mentality.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

4. Hello darlin'

Yeah I know it's hard to imagine. I have gotten a couple of rightwingers to admit "hell YEAH I'd defend my family" then I lay on them "ok what do you think the Iraqis think they're doing?"

They usually have nothing to say on that.

The disconnect and the irony on this is enough to kill me (did WE have a fair election just recently?).

By the way, while I have you here, what do you think the chances are Iraq will actually HAVE a free, safe, democratic election in January? As a percentage chance....10%? 50%? 0%?

BTW, do you live near the Pacific? Snicker snicker tee hee.

[skygazer]

5. Absolutely I would fight back

I've been using this scenario since before we went into Iraq and I've been using it every time I hear someone speak about "insurgents". This idea that we are somehow morally superior because we're Americans really bugs me deeply. There is nothing morally superior about destroying a country that posed no harm to us and that the majority of residents did not want us in.