While I'm horrified at all the aggression we've seen BEFORE the RNC convention even starts, I'm glad they're getting some notice. Of course, the crappy AP report (only click on link if you don't believe me) doesn't mention any of the trampling of rights of these protesters, whereas Firedoglake.com has several good posts on the matter which I won't recap here.
However, one specific reaction of several protesters sounded eerily familiar...
Watch the whole video if you can, but specifically at 7:47 (h/t to C&L where I first saw this):
The young woman speaks to how the overaggressive tactics of a SWAT team barging in with assault rifles (but without warrants or explanations) reinforces the oft-held stereotype of cops as mindless thugs enforcing an injust military/police state. I immediately thought of similar reactions I'd heard from Iraqi widows attempting to understand how our military is supposed to be helping them by imprisoning or killing their husbands and children, and how obtusely counterproductive such blithe assertiveness can be.
At 8:00, another woman mentions how her rage was just fueled for years because of the incident, which is echoed by all others in the room. And what may have just been a phase for some of those 23 kids was probably transformed into a lifetime of activism. Just as what may have been malcontentment in an Iraqi youth towards an occupying force could be transformed into grief-stricken terrorism after his entire family is riddled full of bullets at a checkpoint.
They also mention how the incident would not deter their protest; such a brazen and questionable display of police tactics only intensifies their awareness that their protests are needed more now than ever. And given the collective haircuts, I'd wager the cops passed judgment on all of them as quickly as the protesters passes judgment on the cops. In our Iraqi occupation, there may be no determent either for the vengeful urges of relatives of a family whose wedding reception was bombed. The Iraqi citizens see we only count our own corpses, that they are "collateral damage", that they are guilty until proven innocent (unless there's no proof--then we just "detain" them indefinitely--and doesn't the word "detain" imply eventual release?? Arrgh, the linguistic semantics)...
The battle for hearts and minds was lost a long time ago over there. The denizens of the Middle East aren't exactly known for letting their grudges go, and we're bankrupting ourselves even as Iraq is announcing a 3/4 trillion dollar surplus?? We need to let it go. Any progress we make in Iraq from here on out will pale with the damage we've already done, just as an apology and return of their seized computers and journals won't erase the harrowing memory of the raid from the protesters.
Military solutions won't work for political problems--but in a larger sense, two populations that don't trust each other and live in constant fear of the other won't be prone to copacetic action. In any dichotomy like this, finding compromise will be a lot harder than each just leaving the other alone. However, this also describes the current rift between Democrats and Republicans, and though we hate to admit it, we can use all the help we need. So I hope Obama's call to an American unity will inspire a wave of conciliation across our country and the world.
FYI, I do not mean to belittle any lives lost overseas by this comparison--rather, to help us appreciate the quasi-police state we live in isn't as different from a military police state in concept as we'd like it to be.