America is in its own corner of the world. I will only be bombed in some sort of over in an instant nuclear holocaust. I don't think we have ever really felt a national tragedy. This, of course, is a blessing and yet it sort of hamstrings us in the wider world.
To further illustrate my point. I grew up listening to stories about Cowboys and Indians. More specifically I grew up listenting to the stories about the Comanche, the Kiowa, and The Apache. The plains Indians loom in the Texas psyche to this day. Stories About how they took blue eyed babies and drug them threw the cactus plants, About how they raided white homesteads and took the redheaded women as sex slaves, about how they were the toughest sons of bitches this side of the Pecos. We would point to our scars and imagine they were given to us by some proud Comanche warrior (maybe even Quanah Parker himself). The Cowboys were American knights, defending us from evil.
Now Granted, the Comanche were a salty people who did do those things and did carve out an empire through subjugation. However they also only numbered about 20,000 people total and they were ruthlessly hunted by the Texas Rangers. The Rangers killed indiscriminately, burned whole bands, and when there was nothing left to destroy, they crossed the border to burn loot and rape various Mexicans villages. I guess because Mexicans kind of look like Indians.
The few Comanche left now live hundreds of miles to the East in Oklahoma. We named an attack helicopter them. As if our vanquished enemies give us power.
Now everyone grows up with stories about their national heroes and at the risk of rambling, I will get to my point. The national mythos is usually tempered by national tragedy. America doesn't have a national tragedy. There are no scars on our psyche and I think that is to our detriment. In our minds, we are good and pure. In our minds, force is a tool for a good cause. Force has given us our nation. Force freed the slaves. Force defeated the NAZIs. Force whipped the Japanese. Force never bombed out San Fransisco. Force never occupied New England. Force was never Mexican ranger raids into Texas. Force is not Pakistan violating our sovereignty killing someone in one of our cities.
Im not sure I have a wider point here beyond my own reflection I am sharing. I should make this more concise. I just feel America is too quick to use force and our own detachment is a big driver of that. If that makes sense.
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