Downright Rude if Nothing Else

On the flight from London to Munich today, I read a contribution by the Journalist, James Cameron (17 June 1911 – 26 January 1985) in John Pilger's edited book 'Tell Me No Lies'. The article 'Through the Looking Glass 1966' is based on Cameron's experiences when he was one of the very few western reporters, who were actually allowed to report from North Vietnam during the war and there was a passage in his piece that left me empathising with him completely. On writing of the United States bombing raids he describes his overriding emotions in the following manner, "There was somehow a sense of outrage against civility; what an offence against manners, if nothing else; by what right do these airmen intrude over a country they do not recognise, with which they are not formally at war; who gave these people sanction to drop their bombs and rockets on other people's roads and houses, to blow up the harvest, to destroy people of whom they know absolutely nothing?"1 His indignation is palpable and I share it completely. Some years ago I remember watching a documentary film of the German occupation of Warsaw and, while we know that for many in the film the end of the road was the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sachsenhausen and the other death camps, the first question I asked myself, was "Who gives these fucking idiots the right to go into other peoples homes, to tell them to get out of their beds and get up and get dressed, to herd them onto the streets, who gives them the right to go into someone elses country, and bully, dictate, torture and kill?" When I ask myself this question the "terrorist" becomes easier to understand but in understanding the "terrorist" I am also becoming aware of who the real terrorist is.
1 James Cameron in 'Tell Me No Lies' (Edited John Pilger) p83