Editor,
This is in response to Andrew Price's column in Tuesday's Daily Lobo, "Liberals Doom America," in which Price professes his unwavering desire to fight till the last drop of other peoples' blood.
Price goes on and on about the United States' lofty and benevolent quest to "spread freedom and democracy to the countries of the Middle East." He then explains that these people need our help, essentially to protect them from themselves.
I would like to point out to Price this is similar to what every invading military power has said through out history. Must we forget the colonization of the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East? The European monarchs and aristocrats said virtually the same things Price is spouting - beliefs in their superior ideals, culture, moral values, form of government, and the need to "protect" the people from the evil-doers.
Look into it - read about the Belgian colonization of what we call the Congo, King Leopold's benevolent quest to spread freedom and civilization to the dark corners of Africa. Read into the history of imperialism in general, and that's what you will find time and time again: the profession of benevolent intention. It is pretty much a universal characteristic of military aggression.
The Nazis didn't say they were carrying out terror campaigns in Europe - of course not. They were protecting the populations from the terror of the partisans - they were performing counter-terrorism. They didn't see the invasion of Europe as an act of aggression; they were defending themselves and others from a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy to take over the world, fighting an onslaught against civilization itself.
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Take the justification for the Japanese invasion of China - that it was to protect the people of China from western imperialism. Or when the British military first strolled into Baghdad in 1917, the commanding officer Sir Stanley Maude issued the statement, "We have come not as conquerors but as liberators to free you from your generations of tyranny." Sound familiar?
So, Price, the next time you decide to publicly degrade other cultures and advocate violence, just remember that it's nothing new.
Steve Sanchez
UNM student
