I’ve got a question for you and you’ll have to wait until after I give you a little background. Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser starred together in a new film adaptation of author Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American. Both the novel and the movie tell a semi-fictionalized account of how the United States got involved in what would become the Vietnam War. Caine plays a weary British journalist in Saigon of the pre-war early 1950s. Fraser is, his character believes at first, a nice young American aid worker come to help the people of Vietnam. Turns out, however, that the nice young American aid worker is in Vietnam for charitable reasons. His quiet demeanor is only there to distract suspicion from the possibility that he’s actually a CIA operative on a mission to ensure that democracy comes to Vietnam and stays there.

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Got it? Michael Caine is good guy reporter who knows that Fraser’s character is warmonger from America willing to kill innocents and start a war if it means ensuring a future consumer demographic, but who does nothing with his power of the press to bring America’s plan to light. Meanwhile, over there on the other side of the avenue stands Fraser’s character. He doesn’t let on to anyone about his role in America’s plan for, well, world domination. Let’s face it, that’s what their plan was and is. Keep in mind that this movie is based on real events. CIA operatives were working undercover in Vietnam in ways that kill innocent civilians to make the commies look bad so they would view American forces as heroes.

Here’s my question. Who actually is the quiet American of the title?
[LONG, DRAMATIC PAUSE BEFORE POINTING TO INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE ONE AT TIME]

You! And you! And you! And, yes, even you! Each and every one of you are the quiet American.

“But wait,” you are saying. “How can I be the quiet American? I’m not even American.” Don’t you see? The title refers literally to the CIA operative acting in secrete behind his quite little nice guy act. But you have to remember that the movie is solidly grounded in reality. Not the romance parts about the bizarre love triangle between a beautiful young Vietnamese woman and a wrinkly old Brit and a kid of doofusy-acting American. The reality of the movie is none of the real-life Michael Caines did much to try to stop things. Heck, do you know that there was a version of The Quiet American made back in the 1950s that actually turned things completely upside down and made Caine’s character the villain and Fraser’s character the hero?

Do you want to know why you….and you…and you…and even you…and even me are the real quiet Americans here? Because we’re just like those guys back in the 1950s in Vietnam who saw what was going on and didn’t try to stop it. And we’re like the guys in the 1960s who refused to believe that all those long-haired hippie war protestors might be right. And we’re like all those people who never even questioned the big stripey lie about WMDs in Iraq. Nothing has changed since 1952. America and the other western powers are doing exactly the same thing now as they did then. They never stopped. And they never will stop. And do you want to know why?
[LONG QUIET PAUSE. LET THE SILENCE GO ON FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. PAUSE UNTIL THE SILENCE STARTS TO ACTUALLY BECOME UNCOMFORTABLE.]
[IN A VERY QUIET WHISPER]
That’s why.
[OR, ALTERNATIVELY, IF SOMEONE DOES BREAK THE SILENCE]
Because you…and you…and you…and all the rest of you didn’t have the guts to speak out when it wasn’t popular like this brave heroic figure. [POINT TO THE PERSON WHO BROKE THE SILENCE]