Reply #12: That Does Not Seem Likely To Me, Ma'am

[The Magistrate]

But then, you know my motto: "Never attribute to malice what stupidity will suffice to explain."

It seems most likely to me these people actually believed their propagandas about being welcomed as liberators. They know nothing of the world, really, and are resolutely and proudly ignorant of the different cultures and mores of the region they have so blithely entered. Even now, they think they can quell the resistance to their presence, and restore what they imagine to be a "normal" state of coloial quiesence there. But the fact is they have no idea how to do so short of frightfulness, and they do not really have the stomach, either, for the degree of frightfulness that would be required for success along that line.