t r u t h o u t | Kipling Haunts Obama's Afghan War

Description

The White Man's Burden, a phrase immortalized by English poet Rudyard Kipling as an excuse for European-American imperialism, was front and center Thursday morning (October 29) at a RAND-sponsored discussion of Afghanistan in the Russell Senate Office Building.

The agenda was top-heavy with RAND speakers, and the thinking was decidedly "inside the box" - so much so, that I found myself repeating a verse from Kipling, who recognized the dangers of imperialism, to remind me of the real world:

It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.

At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased;

And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East.

Original URL

http://www.truthout.org/1101091

http://www.truthout.org/1101091