What if it were US Under the Boot?

Reading about the bloody rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, I struggle for a common point of reference. Watching friends and relatives dragged dead through the streets, dozens assassinated point blank at impromptu checkpoints, holy shrines bombed. Not an experience Americans can relate to.

But imagine being Afghan, or Iraqi, imagine all of that right here at home. America as a poorer, smaller nation, with powerful neighbors. We’d possess one or two exportable natural resources, and be quite dependent on international commerce. Imagine our own rivalry . . .

Reading about the bloody rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, I struggle for a common point of reference. Watching friends and relatives dragged dead through the streets, dozens assassinated point blank at impromptu checkpoints, holy shrines bombed. Not an experience Americans can relate to.

But imagine being Afghan, or Iraqi, imagine all of that right here at home. America as a poorer, smaller nation, with powerful neighbors. We’d possess one or two exportable natural resources, and be quite dependent on international commerce. Imagine our own rivalry between North and South, exaggerated by the presence of lots of guns, which always seems to be the case when a country is poor. Imagine the Pat Robertsons and Focus-on-the-Family types, the John Stewarts and Ted Kennedies – all armed to the teeth and really, really mean.

Now, as happens with unstable, smaller nations, a superpower will step in and “help” this America, arm both sides, watch the bloodshed with a tisk-tisk and siphon off natural resources at less-than-fair prices. Then other superpowers would take interest, alliances form, perhaps the Brits place their bets on the Ted Kennedies, the French support the religious conservatives.

During such times, all moderate voices in our nation would be silenced, anyone not advocating violence succumbs to two generations of “I-killa-you-family,” and the reasonable among us are either dead or abroad. No one’s left except the abortion-clinic bombers and the crazy-left Weather Underground. What happens next?

Enter another superpower who subjugates all of America under a brutal dictatorship, and the rest of the world sees its chance. They arm a scrappy band of hardbitten, homegrown warriors, deeply religious, patriotic, fierce fighters, and with enough foreign support, America’s Patriots prevail against the unwanted superpower, and the world rejoices.

The new government signs contracts with supporting nations, in exchange for arms to protect itself against its own citizens, and America’s tribute flows to the Mother Ship. At this point, all the nations leave, washing their hands of the mess they’ve made, while Americans continue fighting to settle old scores. Right here, you could insert a sneering Ann Coulter, “Those Americans have a seeerious anger management problem.”

What’s it like to be Afghan or Iraqi? Now you’ve just about got it.

So when I read the account of Iraqi citizens questioning why America suddenly sat on their hands while the Sunni and Shi’ite militants went at it, I recalled Bill Clinton hamstrung by allegations of oral sex while Bosnians and Rwandans were butchered by the thousands, and I thought of Nick Nolte, playing UN Colonel Oliver in the movie Rwanda, burdened with the knowledge that the West planned to walk away and let the blood flow. All he could say to Paul Rusesabagina was “You should spit in my face.”