The American War(s)
Two weeks from today I’ll be heading to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Of the many attractions there, I’m anticipating the War Remnants Museum (formerly American War Crimes Museum) the most. I’m thinking of it as a right of passage to begin my second quarter-century as an American. Reading about the museum, and Vietnamese history in general in preparation for the trip, has renewed my awareness of the country I come from.
The Brits in my ESL class have asked a few times what I think about the election, particularly after Hillary’s win in Pennsylvania. They think Hillary will win because America is more ready for a white woman than a Black man. I think she’ll win because I am fundamentally cynical about anything good happening through the American electoral system, and President Obama would be a good thing. In any case, the conversation finishes with me saying the only way the Democrats could lose the general election is if Hillary is their nominee, which means McCain will assume the throne, we’ll promptly invade Iran, and be in Iraq for at least another generation.
Here in Thailand, neighbor to Vietnam, the Iraq of my parents’ generation, I can see the other American war unfolding. Perhaps calling it American is unfair, as it is being perpetrated by a coalition of forces – American, English, French. The open-market world means that foreign investment can go just about anywhere. In Bangkok it takes the form of monumental shopping malls full of internationally branded stores most Thai could never afford to shop in. For that matter, neither can I.
As an American English teacher I met this week put it “They are really trying to not be a third world country.” Of course, while development proceeds at a break-neck speed, most Thai still live in poverty. My favorite place to eat so far is a Carrefour shopping center. Carrefour is sort of a French Wal-Mart, and this shopping center has a wonderful food court with a wide selection of Thai and Asian food and beverage for an affordable price. I usually pay about 60 baht ($2) for a meal with beverage and dessert. While that seems great to me, I realize that it’s at least double what a meal costs at a street stall, and is enough to be out of reach for most Thai.
On my way home from lunch today, I passed two severely maimed individuals, one with four half-limbs laying on his belly on the sidewalk writhing, one in a wheelchair with a completely burned face and eyes that looked like open wounds. Their age was right, and while their wounds had probably not been caused by the American war of the 60’s and early 70’s, I couldn’t help but wonder. That war is over (save the land mines an unexploded ordinance that still cause casualties today), but the economic war continues. Wealth is being extracted from this country by foreign and multinational corporations every second.
All this stirs around in my head with the uncomfortable truth that America is spiraling downward. The neo-fascist Bush regime is eroding democracy and civil rights, our dollar is losing value daily, we have less access to health care than Iraqis did before the US invaded, and our cultural influence is weaker than it has been since the end of the cold war.
I hope that some time soon we’ll find a way to make our country something to be proud of again. I hope that someday soon there will be no American War abroad, but rather a struggle at home, a mobilization to re-build ourselves and our country.
