Then and Now

An account from a foreign correspondent:

[the American officials] place a very high value on the purity of their intentions and a very low estimate on the motivations of the Iraqis.
....Our capacity for overlooking the obvious is enormous. Even one of the best and most independent reporters here was shocked by the anti-Americanism of recent demonstrations in Baghdad and in Tikrit and Basra. He shares the naive view that we are there to help the Iraqi and regards the demonstrations as sheer ingratitude. The simple fact that occupying armies, whether allied or enemy, always become unpopular hardly ever figures in official calculation.

Sounds about right. Except, here is the above quote as it was originally penned by I.F Stone after a visit to Saigon in 1966:

They [the American officials] place a very high value on the purity of their intentions and a very low estimate on the motivations of the Vietnamese.
....Our capacity for overlooking the obvious is enormous. Even one of the best and most independent reporters here was shocked by the anti-Americanism of recent demonstrations in Saigon and in Hué and Danang. He shares the naive view that we are there to help the Vietnamese and regards the demonstrations as sheer ingratitude. The simple fact that occupying armies, whether allied or enemy, always become unpopular hardly ever figures in official calculation.

Go figure.