The American Insurgency

I have long seen the parallels between the US occupation of Iraq and the American Revolutionary War.

For starters, hard-core Bushies think that America has the right to torture anyone captured who is not wearing a uniform. As I recall, the Colonial Rebellion was fought by people wearing Native American buckskin, or everyday work clothes.

Also, American Colonists used terror tactics: camouflage, hiding behind trees, and help from the French and Native Americans. The British were angry that their conventional tactics of engagement (marching in straight lines, fancy uniforms, agreed-upon hours, and open-field battles) were not being respected.

Colonial Americans were angry that they were being occupied by an overseas force, trying to impose their style of governing and commerce on them. Yet today, we have forgotten what it is like to be occupied, and instead have become the Occupier.

Imagine if China said, "You have a brutal government which is waging unjust war on innocent populations. We have no problem with the American people; it is your government that we have issue with. You have not replaced your government with a responsible one, so we are invading to take it out."

At first we would resist the Chinese invaders. But then we would attack each other, Republican vs Democrat. This country has become so divided, with the hateful rhetoric spewed mostly by those on the Right, that we are like Sunni and Shia, rather than One Nation Indivisible.