peace, justice, and the american way...

Mary Jo Schillabeer, Sydney Morning Herald, Letters, 8-9 May, 2004, writes:

As an American, the fact that we were brought up to believe that Americans are the champions of peace and justice makes it just that much more disturbing to learn of the escalating stories of abuse of prisoners.

And Mary Jo is only now becoming disturbed?

That's what's so disturbing about so many Americans - their breathtaking refusal to notice, in the face of mountains of evidence, piling up for decades now, that America is not at all interested in either peace or justice.

Mary Jo conveniently overlooks the spurious reasons for the Iraq war (champions of peace, yeah?). Apparently these did not cause Mary Jo to become alarmed (never mind merely disturbed).

And the Bush regime's emphatic claims that it will not be bound by International Law, UN resolutions, the International Court of Justice, or the International Criminal Court did not cause Mary Jo's achey breaky heart to miss even an itsy bitsy beat whilst she was apparently failing to have these events contextualise for her, the true importance America places on being a champion for justice.

And all of a sudden, a few photos of abused and humiliated prisoners cause her to have a conscience? The wholesale slaughter of thousands of civilians during the Shock and Awe Roadshow of American Military Might did not disturb her? The reckless and lawless killing of thousands more Iraqi civilians since then did not disturb her? Apparently not. It took photos. Images.

This begs a question: Why didn't the many published photos of dead and mutilated Iraqi civilians disturb the Mary Jo's of America? I think it may be that images of dead Iraqi civilians can be easily explained away with a bit of jingoism, spin and propaganda, whereas in the Abu Ghraib images, America's atrocities cannot be so easily disimissed.