The View Of The Occupied

Greenwald interviews Nir Rosen about his book, Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World:

I guess one thing we miss is just the deep humiliation and disruption that results from a foreign occupation. Now, most American soldiers are familiar with the movie Red Dawn, so sometimes I try to use that as a way to get them to understand the other side, although I guess they're these days probably too young to remember that movie. But even if the American soldiers aren't necessarily killing innocent people or torturing them, it's the mere presence, it's so brutally disruptive, the checkpoints, the strangers going into your house, constantly having foreigners with guns pointed at you wherever you go, people telling you what to do who don't speak your language. If they arrest one of the men in your house, you don't know who to appeal to.

If you're lost and scared, there are huge guys with helmets and vests and weapons who are shouting at you. And even if they were girl scouts, they have these immense vehicles and they go on the roads and are breaking irrigation pipes and accidentally running over your car or damaging it. It's a constant disruption and humiliation and fear which I don't think Americans have been able to appreciate. To us to perceive the American military is acting somewhat like cops on the beat or boy scouts whereas for locals it much a more painful and humiliating and scary experience.