Reflections on the myth of American Exceptionalism
by Tim Wise
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=5518
(...)
Amazingly, some of the inhumanity of current U.S. forces is
reminiscent of an early variant practiced by white colonizers and
genocidists upon entering the Americas.
Back in the day it was not uncommon for the Spanish to enter an
indigenous community and read the inhabitants a decree declaring the
land the property of the Spanish crown. Read in a language totally
unfamiliar to the natives of the land, the decree would then demand
compliance from them, and when such compliance would fail to
materialize, the invaders would kill everyone in sight.
This practice has apparently made a comeback in Iraq, where U.S.
Marine reservists beat a former Ba'ath party official to death
because he refused to "follow orders." The fact that none of the
Marines who interrogated him spoke Arabic (of course not), and that
there was no translator assigned to the inmate who could have made
clear to him what his torturers wanted, made little difference to his
ultimate fate of course. After all, if you don't speak the master's
language, it's your fault, so you can be murdered.
Likewise, according to the recently released report of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, language differences often
led to detainees "being slapped, roughed up, pushed around or pushed
to the ground." The report goes on to say, "A failure to understand
or a misunderstanding of orders given in English was construed by
guards as resistance or disobedience."
None of this is to say that the U.S. and its forces are any worse
than folks elsewhere, who no doubt engage in this kind of violence as
well. It's just to say that we're not any better either; we're all
too similar in fact.
(...)
That, in most instances, is the biggest difference between them and
us: the fact that in most cases we have the financial and
technological wherewithal to murder in a relatively antiseptic and
distant fashion: the very definition of inhuman, truth be told,
because it involves such emotional detachment.
(...)
That so many are still able to wallow in the fantasy of white,
western cultural superiority, even in the wake of such public
evidence contradicting it, is a testament to the fundamental sickness
that comes with empire."
by Tim Wise
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=5518
(...)
Amazingly, some of the inhumanity of current U.S. forces is
reminiscent of an early variant practiced by white colonizers and
genocidists upon entering the Americas.
Back in the day it was not uncommon for the Spanish to enter an
indigenous community and read the inhabitants a decree declaring the
land the property of the Spanish crown. Read in a language totally
unfamiliar to the natives of the land, the decree would then demand
compliance from them, and when such compliance would fail to
materialize, the invaders would kill everyone in sight.
This practice has apparently made a comeback in Iraq, where U.S.
Marine reservists beat a former Ba'ath party official to death
because he refused to "follow orders." The fact that none of the
Marines who interrogated him spoke Arabic (of course not), and that
there was no translator assigned to the inmate who could have made
clear to him what his torturers wanted, made little difference to his
ultimate fate of course. After all, if you don't speak the master's
language, it's your fault, so you can be murdered.
Likewise, according to the recently released report of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, language differences often
led to detainees "being slapped, roughed up, pushed around or pushed
to the ground." The report goes on to say, "A failure to understand
or a misunderstanding of orders given in English was construed by
guards as resistance or disobedience."
None of this is to say that the U.S. and its forces are any worse
than folks elsewhere, who no doubt engage in this kind of violence as
well. It's just to say that we're not any better either; we're all
too similar in fact.
(...)
That, in most instances, is the biggest difference between them and
us: the fact that in most cases we have the financial and
technological wherewithal to murder in a relatively antiseptic and
distant fashion: the very definition of inhuman, truth be told,
because it involves such emotional detachment.
(...)
That so many are still able to wallow in the fantasy of white,
western cultural superiority, even in the wake of such public
evidence contradicting it, is a testament to the fundamental sickness
that comes with empire."