The Daily Background

Mayor Bloomberg wades into dangerous water:

In his most detailed comments on the Iraq war, Mayor Bloomberg last night suggested the United States was in the same difficult position as the British in the Revolutionary War - facing a determined band of insurgents.

Bloomberg said the comparison occurred to him when he visited his mother recently and was driving through Lexington, Mass., where a scrubby group of farmers rose up against a well-trained militia more than 200 years ago.

“We’re the British,” the mayor said during an interview with Tom Brokaw at Cooper Union, part of a series featuring potential presidential contenders hosted by former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Huh. Bloomberg is farther to the left on Iraq than anybody thought. I’ve heard this analogy before but there are some assumptions that necessarily have to go with it. By saying that we’re the British, he’s implying that the United States is trying to establish a colony (an economic colony at least) in Iraq, like America was once a colony for Great Britain.

And that’s a legitimate point of view to have, but the obvious difference is that the people in Iraq weren’t ours to begin with- they existed and had an established society before we ever got there. I think the better analogy, if Bloomberg wants to go this route, is one comparing the insurgents in Iraq (this obviously doesn’t include foreign fighters) with Native Americans and Americans with the invading colonists.

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