Wednesday, January 02, 2008

C/P from one of my GG comments

Independent of another commenters word choice, there is nevertheless a demented view that might be worth discussing.

It's called American exceptionalism, and it refers to the act of shifting moral judgements based on the identity of the actors. One needn't be "demented" in order to perceive that from the Iraqi point of view, American soldiers are unwelcome and dangerous. One needn't be demented in order to note that the rules that were written in the aftermath of WWII and which form the basis for the existence of the UN (written in large part by the US) outlaws wars of aggression and that in the absense of a direct threat from Iraq, the US is in violation of the same rules it authored.

What is demented is the idea, that torture and sexual abuse are acceptable or forgivable if carried out by "Americans" against "terrorists" if only because a terrorist once made a video of a beheading.

Once you take off the blinders that make everthing we do automatically OK, you will suddenly see that we have a lot to answer for, and calling blog commenters names isn't going to make that culpability go away.

No comments: