Symptoms of Empire U.S.A.
Why would anybody be amazed at American torture when hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, mutilated and murdered ?
By Ted Schmidt
“As Americans we are inclined to be a bit insular,” writes Joan Chittister. “We see ourselves as the centre of the globe, the biggest, the best, the latest, the smartest, the most advanced, the most powerful, the most right, the paragon of all paragons in all things.”
This much-travelled and deeply-anchored Benedictine is free enough and American enough to criticize the appalling misadventures of the current American administration and the most incompetent president in living memory.
This is a presidency which has deeply shamed the American people with its imperial bluster and swagger, its thumbing its nose at international institutions and norms and its ignorance about how the rest of the world lives.
For many, the degraded revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib are not surprising. To the average decent American, they have been a staggering blow to a psyche already wounded by 9/11. Those of us north of the 49th parallel can easily and willingly testify to the basic goodness and generosity of American people and can say that these revelations are indeed uncharacteristic of Americans. They are however, totally in character with the foreign policy of the United States, certainly in the post war period.
We should recognize then that torture and wanton destruction in places like Fallujah are not so much reflections of Americans, but symptoms of empire. Surprisingly, it was the conservative columnist George Will who made the link between torture and empire. He said, “Americans must not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact: that pornography is almost inevitably part of what empire looks like ... empire is always about domination.”
Stunning, hubristic blindness
What shocks many is that commentators like Will and too much of the American corporate press have been enthusiastic proponents of American power for over 40 years. An imperial power, be it Spain, Britain, France or in this case, the United States will do anything it has to do to keep its relentless appetite for consumer goods flowing, whether it is 30 per cent of the world's energy or strawberries in winter. And the attitude will always be: I don't want to know where it comes from or why it is so cheap.
“Ten thousand Iraqi civilians dead you say? No WMD? Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11? I did not know that. Five hundred thousand Iraqi children starved during the blockade of the 1990s. Too bad, I'm busy worrying about Friends and Sex in the City and who got voted off the island. Even though fifty per cent of us do not vote (the worst record in the western world) I am sure we are exporting democracy to the 'Eye-rakees'”, as Lynndie England, the sad fall girl with the dog collar, called her Arab prisoners.
It is this stunning hubristic blindness which the “ideological institutions — the schools, the media and much of scholarship”, as Noam Chomsky keeps repeating — a worn-out mantra extolling U.S virtues, all facts to the contrary, one of which is that that the U.S. has a profound concern for human rights and the raising of living standards and democratization.
Why would anybody be amazed at American torture when hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, mutilated and murdered in record numbers by thugs trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, a scandalous insult to true American values and which tens of thousands of brave Americans have been trying to close in the past decades. Guatemala alone has been a charnel house since the U.S. government subverted the Arbenz government in 1954 at the request of the United Fruit Company.
Negroponte: a classic case study
Why is it that no senator, congressperson or the so-called “free press” has raised their voice when the ultimate insider, John Negroponte, was named the new ambassador to Iraq as of July 1. From Quito to Mexico City to Manila to Tegucigalpa, Negroponte has done the empire's bidding.
In 1981, he was sent by Ronald Reagan to turn Honduras into a military command post against the Sandinistas in nearby Nicaragua. It was here that according to the Baltimore Sun, Negroponte allied himself with General Augusto Alvarez, a brutal army officer who had learned his trade in the Dirty War in Argentina in the late 1970s. Alvarez headed the notorious Battalion 316, a rampaging death squad trained and supplied by the CIA. It used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners were “often kept naked and, when no longer useful killed and buried in unmarked graves.” As well, the Sun said that the embassy knew all this and were told to omit any references to these abuses in their reports. Alvarez was finally deposed by his fellow officers and Negroponte returned to the U.S.
Make no mistake. The breaches of international law are systematic and institutionalized, as monitors like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have stated. “The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves as they abused prisoners, suggests they had nothing to fear from their superiors”, said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth. Despite the swift damage control and the sacrificial offerings of low-ranking recruits, most observers are not fooled. The rot is deep and institutional.
“There's definitely a cover up”, said Sgt. Samuel Provance who was part of Military Intelligence stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. “People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet.”
As Chittister said, America is an isolated nation, largely ignorant of other cultures and peoples. Their soldiers speak no Arabic and have no understanding of Iraqi culture. Paul Bremer, their man in charge, has no background at all, while his British counterpart speaks fluent Arabic. As a high-ranking British officer told London's Daily Telegraph, “The American use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They do not see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as subhuman. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life. Their attitude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful. As far as they are concerned Iraq is a bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.”
Canadian response
For Canadians, often content to gloat over U.S. insularity, Alex Neve, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, has some wise advice. He suggests after “the nightmarish images of Somalia in 1992, our house is not in order.” The case of Mahar Arar, handed over to Syrian torturers with possible Canadian complicity is worrisome. We are less than transparent in cases like this. Neve points to our enthusiasm for new trade with China “where torture is endemic, countrywide.” Further, we have yet to sign a new international treaty that could make a difference in combating torture.
As well, our immigration system has a long way to go in its decision to deport individuals to countries which torture. Finally, Neve faults Canada for our timidity in rebuking the U.S. government for ignoring international law in Guantanamo. He concludes, “We need to actively and visibly engage our friend over Abu Ghraib. Please let us not just shake our heads. Let us make this the beginning of the end.”
The effete response of Prime Minister Paul Martin over the latest civilian onslaught in Gaza on May 19 is a good example. It deserved more than “This is very troubling.”
Ted Schmidt is editor of Catholic New Times http://www3.telus.net/catholicnewtimes
where this article first appeared.
It also appeared in
Red Pepper, independent magazine of the green and radical left.
http://www.rabble.ca
and
Axis of Logic which brought it to our attention. http://www.axisoflogic.com
Please also see:
Empire-Speak : A Primer In Practical Translation
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9951.shtml
Argentina's Phony Energy Crisis. The petrol consortiums and the governments of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile have distorted to hide crucial elements in the United States strategy of forced appropriation of Latin American natural resources. http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10202.shtml
Climate Change Worse for the South. The forecast of a United Nations agency about the impacts of climate change on Latin American and Caribbean agriculture by 2080 seems to be taken straight from the story of the Apocalypse.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10199.shtml
Haiti In Chains http://www.blackcommentator.com/98/98_cover_haiti.html
From Hitler to Bush http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6481.htm
Bremer May Testify on Iraq Prisoner Abuse
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071604Y.shtml
School of the Americas Watch http://www.soaw.org
Why would anybody be amazed at American torture when hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, mutilated and murdered ?
By Ted Schmidt
“As Americans we are inclined to be a bit insular,” writes Joan Chittister. “We see ourselves as the centre of the globe, the biggest, the best, the latest, the smartest, the most advanced, the most powerful, the most right, the paragon of all paragons in all things.”
This much-travelled and deeply-anchored Benedictine is free enough and American enough to criticize the appalling misadventures of the current American administration and the most incompetent president in living memory.
This is a presidency which has deeply shamed the American people with its imperial bluster and swagger, its thumbing its nose at international institutions and norms and its ignorance about how the rest of the world lives.
For many, the degraded revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib are not surprising. To the average decent American, they have been a staggering blow to a psyche already wounded by 9/11. Those of us north of the 49th parallel can easily and willingly testify to the basic goodness and generosity of American people and can say that these revelations are indeed uncharacteristic of Americans. They are however, totally in character with the foreign policy of the United States, certainly in the post war period.
We should recognize then that torture and wanton destruction in places like Fallujah are not so much reflections of Americans, but symptoms of empire. Surprisingly, it was the conservative columnist George Will who made the link between torture and empire. He said, “Americans must not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact: that pornography is almost inevitably part of what empire looks like ... empire is always about domination.”
Stunning, hubristic blindness
What shocks many is that commentators like Will and too much of the American corporate press have been enthusiastic proponents of American power for over 40 years. An imperial power, be it Spain, Britain, France or in this case, the United States will do anything it has to do to keep its relentless appetite for consumer goods flowing, whether it is 30 per cent of the world's energy or strawberries in winter. And the attitude will always be: I don't want to know where it comes from or why it is so cheap.
“Ten thousand Iraqi civilians dead you say? No WMD? Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11? I did not know that. Five hundred thousand Iraqi children starved during the blockade of the 1990s. Too bad, I'm busy worrying about Friends and Sex in the City and who got voted off the island. Even though fifty per cent of us do not vote (the worst record in the western world) I am sure we are exporting democracy to the 'Eye-rakees'”, as Lynndie England, the sad fall girl with the dog collar, called her Arab prisoners.
It is this stunning hubristic blindness which the “ideological institutions — the schools, the media and much of scholarship”, as Noam Chomsky keeps repeating — a worn-out mantra extolling U.S virtues, all facts to the contrary, one of which is that that the U.S. has a profound concern for human rights and the raising of living standards and democratization.
Why would anybody be amazed at American torture when hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, mutilated and murdered in record numbers by thugs trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, a scandalous insult to true American values and which tens of thousands of brave Americans have been trying to close in the past decades. Guatemala alone has been a charnel house since the U.S. government subverted the Arbenz government in 1954 at the request of the United Fruit Company.
Negroponte: a classic case study
Why is it that no senator, congressperson or the so-called “free press” has raised their voice when the ultimate insider, John Negroponte, was named the new ambassador to Iraq as of July 1. From Quito to Mexico City to Manila to Tegucigalpa, Negroponte has done the empire's bidding.
In 1981, he was sent by Ronald Reagan to turn Honduras into a military command post against the Sandinistas in nearby Nicaragua. It was here that according to the Baltimore Sun, Negroponte allied himself with General Augusto Alvarez, a brutal army officer who had learned his trade in the Dirty War in Argentina in the late 1970s. Alvarez headed the notorious Battalion 316, a rampaging death squad trained and supplied by the CIA. It used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners were “often kept naked and, when no longer useful killed and buried in unmarked graves.” As well, the Sun said that the embassy knew all this and were told to omit any references to these abuses in their reports. Alvarez was finally deposed by his fellow officers and Negroponte returned to the U.S.
Make no mistake. The breaches of international law are systematic and institutionalized, as monitors like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have stated. “The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves as they abused prisoners, suggests they had nothing to fear from their superiors”, said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth. Despite the swift damage control and the sacrificial offerings of low-ranking recruits, most observers are not fooled. The rot is deep and institutional.
“There's definitely a cover up”, said Sgt. Samuel Provance who was part of Military Intelligence stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. “People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet.”
As Chittister said, America is an isolated nation, largely ignorant of other cultures and peoples. Their soldiers speak no Arabic and have no understanding of Iraqi culture. Paul Bremer, their man in charge, has no background at all, while his British counterpart speaks fluent Arabic. As a high-ranking British officer told London's Daily Telegraph, “The American use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They do not see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as subhuman. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life. Their attitude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful. As far as they are concerned Iraq is a bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.”
Canadian response
For Canadians, often content to gloat over U.S. insularity, Alex Neve, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, has some wise advice. He suggests after “the nightmarish images of Somalia in 1992, our house is not in order.” The case of Mahar Arar, handed over to Syrian torturers with possible Canadian complicity is worrisome. We are less than transparent in cases like this. Neve points to our enthusiasm for new trade with China “where torture is endemic, countrywide.” Further, we have yet to sign a new international treaty that could make a difference in combating torture.
As well, our immigration system has a long way to go in its decision to deport individuals to countries which torture. Finally, Neve faults Canada for our timidity in rebuking the U.S. government for ignoring international law in Guantanamo. He concludes, “We need to actively and visibly engage our friend over Abu Ghraib. Please let us not just shake our heads. Let us make this the beginning of the end.”
The effete response of Prime Minister Paul Martin over the latest civilian onslaught in Gaza on May 19 is a good example. It deserved more than “This is very troubling.”
Ted Schmidt is editor of Catholic New Times http://www3.telus.net/catholicnewtimes
where this article first appeared.
It also appeared in
Red Pepper, independent magazine of the green and radical left.
http://www.rabble.ca
and
Axis of Logic which brought it to our attention. http://www.axisoflogic.com
Please also see:
Empire-Speak : A Primer In Practical Translation
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_9951.shtml
Argentina's Phony Energy Crisis. The petrol consortiums and the governments of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile have distorted to hide crucial elements in the United States strategy of forced appropriation of Latin American natural resources. http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10202.shtml
Climate Change Worse for the South. The forecast of a United Nations agency about the impacts of climate change on Latin American and Caribbean agriculture by 2080 seems to be taken straight from the story of the Apocalypse.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10199.shtml
Haiti In Chains http://www.blackcommentator.com/98/98_cover_haiti.html
From Hitler to Bush http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6481.htm
Bremer May Testify on Iraq Prisoner Abuse
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071604Y.shtml
School of the Americas Watch http://www.soaw.org