The quiet American was the hero of Graham Greene's novel about the first Vietnam War, the one fought by the French.
He was a young and naïve American, a professor’s son who had enjoyed a good education at Harvard, an idealist with all the best intentions. When he was sent to Vietnam, he wanted to help the natives to overcome the two evils as he saw them: French colonialism and Communism. Knowing absolutely nothing about the country in which he was acting, he caused a disaster. The book ends with a massacre, the outcome of his misguided efforts. He illustrated the old saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Since this book was written, 54 years have passed, but it seems that the quiet American has not changed a bit. He is still an idealist (at least, in his own view of himself), still wants to bring redemption to foreign and faraway peoples about whom he knows nothing, and still causes terrible disasters: in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now, it seems, in Yemen.
The Iraqi example is the simplest one.
The American soldiers were sent there to overthrow the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. There were, of course, also some less altruistic objectives, such as taking control of the Iraqi oil resources and stationing an American garrison in the heart of the Middle Eastern oil region. But for the American public, the adventure was presented as an idealistic enterprise to topple a bloody dictator who was menacing the world with nuclear bombs.
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8:17 PM
Moderate Islamist here
