“I’d also say that depersonalizing the enemy is a requirement of successfully engaging a war. I also don’t think its unique to the US or to this war.” –quote from someone on Columbus Underground regarding the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://www.columbusunderground.com/forums/topic/us-wars-in-afghanistan-and-iraq-are-racist-says-protester-in-dc/page/2#post-287891
I agree (about it not being unique, not necessarily about depersonalizing the enemy as a requirement for successfully engaging in a war).
It’s not unique to the US or to the US wars in the Middle-East. Some folk seem to think that the US is unique in terms of good things–that our nation is the defender of freedom for all the world’s people.
Some of the neo-con folk seem to embrace this form of American Exceptionalism. I saw some of this in what Sarah Palin said during the 2008 campaign about America being the “greatest force for good” the world has ever known.
Conversely, there are people who think that the United States is somehow uniquely bad, in terms of being an agent of violence and oppression around the world.
I agree with neither points of view. Though styles differ from one empire to another, there are patterns that seem common to all super-powers, whether we’re talking about the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, Rome, or the United States.
In the likely event that China emerges as a super-power, I don’t expect that empire to be somehow more benevolent than the United States has been. As I have said before, I don’t want to replace knee-jerk patriotism with an equally unthinking disparagement of my own country.
Some people on the political right seem to embrace a romanticized and sanitized view of our nation, perhaps as a defensive reaction against our nation’s many critics at home and abroad.
Yet, some people on the political left seem to think that the United States is unique in terms of its abuse of human rights and its violence upon the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and so on.
Some of the people on the left seem to be well-versed and vocal about the atrocities our government has committed, while not saying much about the atrocities and other forms of oppression that the governments of other nations commit or allow.
In the final analysis a problem that philosophers and theologians and everyday people have grappled with throughout the ages has been “man’s inhumanity to man.” (There’s a less sexist and less anthropocentric way of expressing that idea.)
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