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Originally posted by Hash: Is it so hard to accept someone's own deeds? Burning cross analogy is not correct here. Burning crosses are burnt because of someone's race, irrelevant of the deeds of the individual. The picture, however offending it is, simply tells truth of deeds of US army. |
The point is that this is an emotional appeal and nothing more. The "US Army" of 2000 is not the same as the "US Army" of 1960 or the "US Army" of 1940 or the "US Army of 1914", any more than the US policies of Bush can be consistent with the US policies of Clinton or of Johnson or Nixon or Kennedy.
Does your argument take into account that there was a draft at the time of the VietNam War? Is the motivation of a draftee stuck in the middle of a conflict the same as a volunteer in the early stages of a war?
With reasoning such as yours, the case could be made that the Islamic Arab world is bloodthirsty, from the conquests of Mohammed, the move through North Africa, the Mongols (many of whom converted), the Ottomans ...
I don't know of any reasonable people who are trying to make that connection. We could just as easily talk about the coexistence of Arab religions, Christians, and Jews before Mohammed, in Jerusalem before the Crusades, in Cordoba or Baghdad.
No, I guess we can just ignore history and pick and choose apparently similar circumstances to say that the behavior of some group of people is consistent for all time.