Perception is everything...and perceptions change over time...
A question I have presented to my college film students: In the film, an U.S. Army Nurse (played by Veronica Lake) walks into a group of Japanese soldiers and blows herself and the Japanese soldiers to bits using hand grenades that were hidden in her Red Cross medical bag. In 1943 when the film was made, American audiences cheered her "heroic, patriotic" deed.
If she had been an Iraqi nurse in 2005 who walked into a group of American soldiers and blew herself and the American soldiers to bits using hand grenades that were hidden in her Red Crescent medical bag, she would be denounced as a "terrorist" and some would feel justified to shoot anyone in the future carrying a Red Crescent medical bag on sight.
A question I have presented to my college film students: In the film, an U.S. Army Nurse (played by Veronica Lake) walks into a group of Japanese soldiers and blows herself and the Japanese soldiers to bits using hand grenades that were hidden in her Red Cross medical bag. In 1943 when the film was made, American audiences cheered her "heroic, patriotic" deed.
If she had been an Iraqi nurse in 2005 who walked into a group of American soldiers and blew herself and the American soldiers to bits using hand grenades that were hidden in her Red Crescent medical bag, she would be denounced as a "terrorist" and some would feel justified to shoot anyone in the future carrying a Red Crescent medical bag on sight.