Who has harder time keeping control? Orwell in "Shooting Elephant" or contemporary soldiers occupying Iraq or Afghanistan?

This is a very
interesting question.'s essay describes to us with accurate and rather shocking precision the
kind of emotions that an oppressor feels to be in the country of the oppressed. In many ways,
his situation strikes a rather uncomfortable parallel with the current situation in Afghanistan,
as in both Imperial Burma and in modern Afghanistan true power is held not by the people but by
incomers who, by virtue of their superior might, have control of the country. Note what Orwell
says about the strange paradoxes within him...