I don't mean to endorse all of Green's positions, although I will say that he was not an English chauvinist, and he was a staunch (nonMarxist) leftist in life and work. I also don't endorse Conrad's monarchism, but Heart of Darknessremains the greatest study of classical colonialism. But I invoked Green because he addressed the American naivete, which we see again in Iraq, that we can make everybody free by a judicious application of overwhelming force. jks  Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@osu.edu> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">>>It's time to get out our copies of The Quiet American again. jks > >Yeah, and then let's talk about it. What struck me about the Quiet >American last time I reread was that Greene was not so much >concerned with the evils of colonialism/imperialism as he was >concerned to show the Americans would never possibly learn how to >play the game. After all, if deep subtle folks like the English had >failed, how could the Americans possibly succeed? That was the >sub-text. And I don't think this attitude is due to his catholicism >either. The biggest American hater I ever met was an Englishman who >groused at me about the by-gone glory days of Britain and of how the >Americans were totally unworthy of taking up the imperialist mantle. > >Ugh. > >Joanna Philip Noyce's film _The Quiet Am erican_ is, politically, far to the left of Graham Greene's novel. The film has nothing to do with nostalgia for the British Empire. Rather, it asks us to choose sides and to choose _against_ the American Empire. ***** "Sooner or later", says Viet Minh agent Heng to British journalist Thomas Fowler, "one has to take sides. If one is to remain human." The remark comes in a scene pivotal to both Graham Greene's 1955 novel and Philip Noyce's 2003 film, based on it. In many respects, it is the theme of both. The difference between Greene and Noyce is that the former was sceptical about such choices, whereas Noyce's film suggests that choosing _against_ the Americans was the right choice. <HTTP: Noyce.doc monk www.austhink.org>***** H. Bruce Franklin's review of _The Quiet American_ is a must read: "By the Bombs' Early Light; Or, The Quiet American's War on Terror," _The Nation_, February 3, 2003. <HTTP: QUI ETAM.htm ~hbf newark.rutgers.edu>. -- Yoshie * C! alendar of Events in Columbus: <HTTP: calendar.html sif students www.osu.edu> * Student International Forum: <HTTP: sif students www.osu.edu /> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <HTTP: www.osudivest.org /> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <HTTP: Al-Awda-Ohio group groups.yahoo.com> * Solidarity: <HTTP: solidarity.igc.org /></BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">Yahoo! Platinum</a> - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">live on your desktop</a>!