american naiveté
America and Americans never cease to amuse me.
So some years back the world witnessed the verbal crucifixion of an otherwise very charismatic and successful US President; I refer to Clinton of course and his affair with Monica Lewinsky. For months altogether we were fed intimate details of Clinton’s infidelity and more was still to come as he was grilled and hounded by the Congress, the media and of course by Ken Starr. That he managed to function at all as President under such intense scrutiny and pressure is remarkable to say the least.
By saying so I don’t mean to condone what Clinton did but its just that we all know such things happen all the time with people in power and that every time a President or a Prime Minister goes to bed with his paramour the world doesn’t stop spinning like it did for much of America in 1997. Let’s face it, history is replete with great leaders but were they also virtuous, puritanical souls standing on lofty moral high grounds?
Doubtful.
So America’s obsession with the Clinton affair seemed rather ludicrious and naive to me just as the recent episode of the US officer charged with killing a wounded Iraqi fighter in Fallujah.
War is a dirty, horrible and ghastly business and the soldier was not under the same circumstances as those torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Again I do not condone what the soldier did but under conditions where the senses are numb with images of rotting corpses and maimed bodies and the stench of death is everywhere, mistakes are made which would not have otherwise been made by the same person in a plush air conditioned corporate office.
And let’s not be too naïve again:- Perchance the NBC reporter just happened to be there.
So some years back the world witnessed the verbal crucifixion of an otherwise very charismatic and successful US President; I refer to Clinton of course and his affair with Monica Lewinsky. For months altogether we were fed intimate details of Clinton’s infidelity and more was still to come as he was grilled and hounded by the Congress, the media and of course by Ken Starr. That he managed to function at all as President under such intense scrutiny and pressure is remarkable to say the least.
By saying so I don’t mean to condone what Clinton did but its just that we all know such things happen all the time with people in power and that every time a President or a Prime Minister goes to bed with his paramour the world doesn’t stop spinning like it did for much of America in 1997. Let’s face it, history is replete with great leaders but were they also virtuous, puritanical souls standing on lofty moral high grounds?
Doubtful.
So America’s obsession with the Clinton affair seemed rather ludicrious and naive to me just as the recent episode of the US officer charged with killing a wounded Iraqi fighter in Fallujah.
War is a dirty, horrible and ghastly business and the soldier was not under the same circumstances as those torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Again I do not condone what the soldier did but under conditions where the senses are numb with images of rotting corpses and maimed bodies and the stench of death is everywhere, mistakes are made which would not have otherwise been made by the same person in a plush air conditioned corporate office.
And let’s not be too naïve again:- Perchance the NBC reporter just happened to be there.
posted by praful at 5:53 PM
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