Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Iraq as the Spanish American War?

Krugman: Citizen Conrad
These days, everything old is new again. Income is once again concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and money rules politics to an extent not seen since the Gilded Age. The Iraq war bears an eerie resemblance to the Spanish-American war. (There was never any evidence linking Spain to the Maine's demise.) And Citizen Kane is back, in the form of an incestuous media-political complex.

I like the Spanish-American war analogy. We are indeed in an odd variant of the Gilded Age. Looking for other historical examples, the "alien" Iraqi culture of honor, vengeance, violence and family reminds me of nothing so much as the American South @ 1850. Makes one wonder if our soldiers, who come largely from south, really find Iraq so incomprehensible. (Parenthetically, I suspect Iraqis are at least as racist as every other traditional society. I wonder what effect the ethnicity of our polyglot military has on Iraqis? I've not seen mention of that anywhere.)

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