Shrewd observation by a 20th century Italian author about Americans:
Curzio Malaparte—an Italian author who had intense contact with Americans during the 1943 invasion of Sicily:
(This was passed on to me by my colleague in one of my Paris offices):
“Vous américains, vous vous levez tôt, mais vous vous reveillez tard.”
Rough translation: “You Americans, you get up early, but you wake up late.”
His observation was essentially that we had good intentions (getting rid of Mussolini and Hitler), and after it was done, we still managed to leave a mess, because we never bothered to try to understand the people we were working with.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I've heard the quote before but couldn't begin to remember where or when.
ONE of my greatest complaints about the general rationale, in the US, for military actions abroad is the lack of consideration for the civilian populations and/or their culture.
Way back around 1970-ish, I remember seeing broadcast, on WGBH, a PSA sort of ad that lasted a few minutes. It aired really late, just before sign off, only saw it once:
The actors never spoke, a voice-over narrated the message. The actors, all men dressed in waistcoats and top hats, two groups of three, marching at each other on a sloped field in approach to a duel. The narrator is describing the conditions of war in general where they begin with politicians in disagreement and they tend to escalate into armed conflict. The politicians then send the young and strong, pride of the nations, to fight these wars in which many are killed and maimed.
By the time the coats and hats have been handed off we see two elderly men, each with two attendee/witnesses holding their garb. The two elderly men 'put up their dukes' and as they attack and fall to the ground trying to land punches, the narrator says, '...this is how wars should be fought.'
Wish I could find it somewhere, it should be a viral thing online today.
