How America Destroyed Its Moral Authority and Revealed Its Brute Imperialism
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Summary
CONFRONTED by pictures of American soldiers humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners, George Bush tried to exculpate his nation by saying that their actions were the exception, not the rule. "That's not the way we do things in America," he told the Arab world via television link. The trouble with that plea in mitigation is that while American citizens are protected by constitutional rights in the so-called "land of the free", the experience of occupied nations is very different. To the ordinary Iraqi, the coalition forces are the occupiers; to the Palestinians, American support of Sharon's new Middle East policy makes them oppressors; and doubtless the Vietnamese people have long memories, too, of civilian attacks and American troops on "R&R" excursions that left men, women and children brutalised in their wake.
Within the cosy confines of Washington's ruling classes, the very notion of ritual torture and abuse of defenceless captives is indeed as abhorrent as the American president says it is. They, however, are living in a goldfish bowl of introspection where any global perspective on the impact of America's actions outwith its frontiers has been lost; and the "grunt" soldiers who carry out the American government's bidding would appear to have no perspective beyond their own war-crazed zeal for power over those weaker than themselves. Atrocities are perpetrated in every war. Soldiers are trained to kill - there is nothing dignified or decent about violent death. And while war may on occasion be justified on the basis that it prevents a greater evil from taking place, let us not be naive about the dehumanising that comes in its wake. The lower ranks of the US Army may include some of the poorest-educated American men and women, but poverty doesn't excuse brutality, and if soldiers can be trained to become effective killing machines, they must also be taught to control the adrenaline surges, frustrations or fear- induced urges that lead them to humiliate their victims. The officers in charge of them must not turn a blind eye; nor must the American nation's leaders, who are responsible for the decision to go to war and the manner in which it is being waged.See the full content of this document
Extract
How America Destroyed Its Moral Authority and Revealed Its Brute Imperialism
The exposure of the soldiers' actions towards prisoners in Abu Ghraib has come close to destroying any moral authority that the US may have clung to for its invasion of Iraq. Bush's...
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