Since the United States of America invaded Iraq in an epic mission of spreading democracy to the feudal corner of the blue planet, the French President, Jacques Chirac affronted this decision with a shouting fist and in the end announced that the aim was to, disarm Iraq, not change its regime. The Americans responded with digging up and shoving history in the face of the world: The effort of the Allies during World War II in driving the Nazi's off French soil. Has France forgotten? one newspaper heading read, but can the USA really justify their cause by quoting from the past? Was it not the French grenadiers who landed at Newport, Rhode Island in 1781 during the Great War Of Independence?
The old whipping-boy, History, has been thoroughly abused through centuries and centuries of warfare, occupation and peace, and always seemed to justify the deeds of the infamous such as Hitler, Napoleon, Hussein and El-Husseini. Or was this their tool to personal vengeance and lust? Time has exposed the rule of the dictator as, in fact, unofficially shared with his soldiers, the actual victors; and to the victors go the spoils of war. The spoils not being stature and wealth but the remainder. Rape, pillaging, and sadistic terror are the real trophies for instance the two million German women raped when the Russian soldiers entered Berlin in 1945. Or the Arab irregulars and Bedouins decapitating limbs in 1935-48 during the war of Israeli independence as to bestow honour upon themselves or as warning to others. To warn from what!
For leader and follower to exist a combined effort is required. Without one, the other cannot function. The leader exists to instill fear, show mercy or sweep the masses to a violent rage; the follower, to follow every command with various degrees of dedication. More often than not, the will of the follower has no value. And so, plummeting into the depths of constraint, individualism slowly diminishes (or has it ever...