Peeking under the Carpet - Deepak Chopra

There's shock in the aftermath of the revelations about Haditha and the My Lai-like rampage that apparently occurred there. Millions of Americans are too young to remember My Lai, but this scandal seems to be following the same path. Heartrending photos of butchered brown people appear. Then we hear rumblings about a cover up, countered by reassurances that a few soldiers under intense pressure briefly lost control. The promise of a full investigation rings hollow; we know the military instinctively protect their own, and much of the public believes they should.

But the most familiar echo from My Lai (and Abu Ghraib as well) is our intense desire to sweep this atrocity under the carpet. Editorials around the country are already sounding the drumbeat: This was an anomaly. Americans shouldn't be judged by the actions of a few. Our soldiers are good men fighting with honor under impossibly grim conditions.

Then I looked at a fascinating new book called "Stumbling on Happiness" by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert. In it he says that we are all wired to make the best of difficult situation.s Almost the first second we get bad news or face any other immediate cause of misery, our brains search desperately for a way to be happy again. The brain remains actively searching until it finds a perspective that softens the blow. According to Gilbert, we all think we handle unhappiness in a unique way, when in fact almost everyone shares the same automatic reflex: We are happy to believe that a My Lai--we can update it to Haditha--either didn't happen or was exaggerated or rests on the shoulders of a few people who forgivably went berserk momentarily.

more: http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/06/peeking_under_t.html#more

rug. Now we have 2 soldiers captured. How can we shout foul if they are tortured and killed? What goes around comes around. This admin., Cheney, called German old Europe, insults and arrogance gets us in a hell of a lot of trouble. What ever happen to at least trying to appear to stand behind our treaties and promises? Gone

is one of the foremost reasons we are still alive and struggling today.

NGU.

it's not the destination that frees us, but the path we take.
dp