What Jill Carroll might try to teach us
It's odd that I feel less odd, as a recovering reporter, in publishing opinion than as I do in publishing something factually accurate but politically incorrect.
Within a few days, an honest, hard-working woman may be beheaded by the Iraqi people she wants so badly to understand.
The kidnapping and threatened execution of Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, is reprehensible at so many levels; her translator was executed without debate. But just as Carroll strove to help her reader understand every side's motivation, her kidnapping offers a sad but useful time to understand why the Iraqi insurgents do not see America as a knight in shining armor riding to the rescue of repressed people everywhere, bearing American fairness and democracy.
By now, every American should be familiar with how their leaders cherry-picked the intelligence to justify a war in Iraq. President George W. Bush has offered one justification of war after another, beginning with weapons of mass destruction, and moving on to terrorism, democracy, human rights abuses and Middle East stability. Only the first argument was really made before the war, as a justification for the war; it has been discredited thoroughly.
From beyond this nation's borders, America's reputation is blackened. At best, others regard this nation as one prone to arrogant and ignorant abuses of power. Others see, simply, a nation beset with imperialist and anti-Muslim ambitions.
Afghanistan may represent those fears more than even the convoluted Iraq example. The United States invaded Afghanistan a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, neglecting earlier opportunities to destroy the soldiers training in al Qaeda camps, argues Michael Scheuer in “Imperial Hubris.” Scheuer, the former leader of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, points to bigger problems abroad as the United States overthrew a Muslim government running under Islamic law and put in place polices anathemic to Muslim doctrine, such as equality for women.
“Also catastrophic to U.S. credibility is her new, almost blithely acquired reputation as the restorer – sacrificing that of the killer – of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European colonialism, as the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and domination of the Arabian Peninsula ensures a supply of cheap oil to the U.S.-led West,” Scheuer wrote.
And what of those human rights issues in Afghanistan? The United States has torn from power the abusive Taliban government, but a weak system of warlords remains. Of 27 U.S. soldiers identified for prosecution in the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody in 2002, one has gotten prison time. One summary run by the Malaysia Sun reads in part: “The overall case, the newspaper said, shows the difficulty of addressing the issue. The prisoners were severely beaten, but by so many guards that it was impossible to say who exactly caused the deaths.”
That update came at nearly the same time the United Nations condemned the way the United States handled prisoners, many of them from Afghanistan, at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. One U.N. expert who worked on the study, Manfred Nowak, said that “there are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture.” None of this is really new. The American government created a new category of prisoners not found elsewhere in international law, a decision protested years ago. The government also blocked efforts to provide lawyers to Yasser Hamdi and John Walker Lindh, both of whom held American citizenship.
None of these kinds of abuses are new to American history, although Americans often don't know about it. In a best-selling book centered around a group of American pilots including George H.W. Bush, author James Bradley describes sets the stage with descriptions of atrocities and imperialist actions by both the Japanese and the Americans. In “Flyboys,” Bradley points out that a century ago Americans killed Filipino men, women and children in an uprising at the rate of 7,000 per month, or the same rate as the United States' combat losses in World War II against the mechanized forces of Japan and Germany. By the time the Filipino uprising was ended, more than 250,000 people were dead. Prisoners were routinely executed. Americans pioneered a torture technique, to simulate drowning, which evolved into today's “waterboarding.”
Have those abuses stopped? Bush fought Congress over a ban on torture, then approved it with a “signing statement.” With that, he ultimately agreed to prohibit torture, except in cases when he just didn't want to.
Today's jihadis in Iraq can take a critical look at America's claims that it will bring human rights benefits to Iraq. They can see a recent history built on lies or half-truths, a broad record of abuses against Muslim people, and a history of imperialism and repression.
Some of this undoubtedly influenced some of Jill Carroll's kidnappers, who hold her hostage as a representative of America. Carroll has sought to understand all sides in the conflict. A better understanding of every side's approaches and history would benefit both Americans and the rest of the world. Hopefully, Carroll will soon be freed to continue the holistic education that the entire world so woefully and terribly needs.
Within a few days, an honest, hard-working woman may be beheaded by the Iraqi people she wants so badly to understand.
The kidnapping and threatened execution of Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, is reprehensible at so many levels; her translator was executed without debate. But just as Carroll strove to help her reader understand every side's motivation, her kidnapping offers a sad but useful time to understand why the Iraqi insurgents do not see America as a knight in shining armor riding to the rescue of repressed people everywhere, bearing American fairness and democracy.
By now, every American should be familiar with how their leaders cherry-picked the intelligence to justify a war in Iraq. President George W. Bush has offered one justification of war after another, beginning with weapons of mass destruction, and moving on to terrorism, democracy, human rights abuses and Middle East stability. Only the first argument was really made before the war, as a justification for the war; it has been discredited thoroughly.
From beyond this nation's borders, America's reputation is blackened. At best, others regard this nation as one prone to arrogant and ignorant abuses of power. Others see, simply, a nation beset with imperialist and anti-Muslim ambitions.
Afghanistan may represent those fears more than even the convoluted Iraq example. The United States invaded Afghanistan a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, neglecting earlier opportunities to destroy the soldiers training in al Qaeda camps, argues Michael Scheuer in “Imperial Hubris.” Scheuer, the former leader of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, points to bigger problems abroad as the United States overthrew a Muslim government running under Islamic law and put in place polices anathemic to Muslim doctrine, such as equality for women.
“Also catastrophic to U.S. credibility is her new, almost blithely acquired reputation as the restorer – sacrificing that of the killer – of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European colonialism, as the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and domination of the Arabian Peninsula ensures a supply of cheap oil to the U.S.-led West,” Scheuer wrote.
And what of those human rights issues in Afghanistan? The United States has torn from power the abusive Taliban government, but a weak system of warlords remains. Of 27 U.S. soldiers identified for prosecution in the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody in 2002, one has gotten prison time. One summary run by the Malaysia Sun reads in part: “The overall case, the newspaper said, shows the difficulty of addressing the issue. The prisoners were severely beaten, but by so many guards that it was impossible to say who exactly caused the deaths.”
That update came at nearly the same time the United Nations condemned the way the United States handled prisoners, many of them from Afghanistan, at the Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. One U.N. expert who worked on the study, Manfred Nowak, said that “there are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture.” None of this is really new. The American government created a new category of prisoners not found elsewhere in international law, a decision protested years ago. The government also blocked efforts to provide lawyers to Yasser Hamdi and John Walker Lindh, both of whom held American citizenship.
None of these kinds of abuses are new to American history, although Americans often don't know about it. In a best-selling book centered around a group of American pilots including George H.W. Bush, author James Bradley describes sets the stage with descriptions of atrocities and imperialist actions by both the Japanese and the Americans. In “Flyboys,” Bradley points out that a century ago Americans killed Filipino men, women and children in an uprising at the rate of 7,000 per month, or the same rate as the United States' combat losses in World War II against the mechanized forces of Japan and Germany. By the time the Filipino uprising was ended, more than 250,000 people were dead. Prisoners were routinely executed. Americans pioneered a torture technique, to simulate drowning, which evolved into today's “waterboarding.”
Have those abuses stopped? Bush fought Congress over a ban on torture, then approved it with a “signing statement.” With that, he ultimately agreed to prohibit torture, except in cases when he just didn't want to.
Today's jihadis in Iraq can take a critical look at America's claims that it will bring human rights benefits to Iraq. They can see a recent history built on lies or half-truths, a broad record of abuses against Muslim people, and a history of imperialism and repression.
Some of this undoubtedly influenced some of Jill Carroll's kidnappers, who hold her hostage as a representative of America. Carroll has sought to understand all sides in the conflict. A better understanding of every side's approaches and history would benefit both Americans and the rest of the world. Hopefully, Carroll will soon be freed to continue the holistic education that the entire world so woefully and terribly needs.
posted by MeTheSheeple at 3:09 PM
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