Yes, US, the U.S.
A nation once beloved and respected both at home and abroad, once idolized as much as it was idealistic (but realistically so), was one we could be proud of with just cause. This was true for many reasons but
none were more important than America's humane treatment of foreign enemy troops when they became POWs in our care.
Once we were a nation so well known for its compassionate handling of prisoners of war that opposing soldiers realizing they were facing defeat would make a determined effort to
surrender to U.S. troops instead of to our allies with whom good treatment was not as certain. It's a matter of record that this happened during WWII, but it's worth noting that as recently as 1991 and the first Gulf War, Iraqi fighters also opted to surrender to Americans.
The reputation of the United States on this score was so strong up until that desert war ordered by George W. Bush's father, GHW Bush, that we all witnessed amazing scenes captured on camera by embedded reporters ... scenes of Iraqi soldiers surrendering
en masse to our astonished soldiers -- and even to American reporters! Clearly, Iraqi troops believed their best chance of not only surviving but also being fed well, housed decently, and having their wounds treated by medics or doctors lay in becoming POWs of the Americans.
We should recall as well that many German POWs -- those who had been housed in camps within U.S. borders during WWII and who were very well treated by our government and our citizens for the duration -- chose at the war's end to remain here and seek to become citizens of the nation that had shown them respect and unexpected common decency.
The German POWs were the benefactors of official United States Government
policy at the time. These policies and rules went even
beyond those of the Geneva Conventions! In their understanding of the sensible wisdom of considerate handling of one's enemies, the U.S. officials responsible for those policies demonstrated a remarkable grasp of the most basic needs of all human beings, the responsibility of our nation to "practice what we preach" as a victor which laid claim to being "the good guys," and the likely positive results of recognizing one's foes as humans, not masses of vicious animals or psychopaths.
Many of these German POWs expressed tearful gratitude to America both for how they were cared for as POWs and for our country's part in restoring the world to sanity and balance, even though that meant great harm had come to many of their own family members in the last months of the war inside Germany. Those POWs, having been far removed for some time from the influence of Nazis, recognized it was Hitler and
his jackbooted thugs who were responsible for the perversion of Germany's government and people and so for the bitter price they had to pay -- the devastation that came to their homeland because Hitler never ceased ordering all Germans to "resist" and to fight to the death.
From being this kind of America, with a well-earned and longstanding reputation for compassion and honorable behavior toward its enemies once they were captured, to becoming a nation which passes laws to permit torture of any foreign enemy combatants "or those who materially support them" -- all during one American President's few short years in office! From respect and honor around the world and a reputation as a superpower that does not use its technology to confuse and spy on its own citizens or its military might to abuse others, to being a lying bully that decides unilaterally to detain whomever it pleases indefinitely and without access to anyone who might witness torture or murder.
Thank you very much, George W. Bush, for how "safe" you have made us all!
Before this President took control of its military, court systems, and media, America was a nation I was very proud of and grateful to live in. I never dreamed it could be any other way.
Not any more. Now I'm wondering if it's
safe or wise to live here at all and if I will still be free tomorrow! I know for sure that any
non-citizens living here are not safe from endless secret detention and grave physical and emotional harm at the hands of my government. Why would any of us be foolish enough to believe we could not be next on this administration's list of undesirables?
The above covers the changes this administration has made in our government's treatment of enemy
soldiers; but the U.S. -- and its military especially -- was at one time equally deserving of a reputation for treating humanely everyone from an individual foreign child needing lifesaving surgery in America to masses of starving, beleaguered civilians in wartorn regions. Now, however, I have little doubt that many people around the world are avoiding visiting the United States simply as the civilians and tourists they are, for fear of what could happen to them here at the hands of a psychotically paranoid American administration!
After all, with no discernible conscience and now almost no restraint by law on their lust to destroy human life on their quest for dominion, this President and his supporters and minions can NOT be expected to curb their own willfully violent natures. Why would they? Apparently the people of this country, through their "duly elected" representatives in Congress, have officially released them from any responsibility to behave humanely!
So I am ashamed -- terribly ashamed, and somewhat anxious and restive as well.
For certain I am deeply concerned that the United States of America I once knew and loved so much is now an entirely different country. Now the U.S.A. is truly feared and passionately loathed by many millions throughout the world who see us as a threat to freedom and justice everywhere -- and again it is with just cause.For the transformation of my country in the last five years to the pariah it is now is
due almost entirely to the decisions made by this administration to change us from a humane, responsible nation with great power to protect the innocent and defend genuine freedom in the world to a lying, greedy, autocratic and dangerous neighbor to anyone this Republican administration doesn't agree with or favor. This criminal clan seeks world dominion. It is driven to gain a global empire with no challengers. And those in power in America right now do not care who or how many they have to lie to, threaten, turture or murder in order to get what they want.
I cannot think of any state of affairs more depressing or more conducive to peril for everyone who dwells on this planet. "My" United States of America as I described her above seems to be very quickly passing from view -- but certainly not from memory!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: The paragraph below was posted at DU by NNN0LHI this past Sunday in an excerpt from an
Asia Times Online article. Regarding the evidence of rampant
torture in Baghdad alone we have the following grim report.
Precise numbers are obviously in short supply on this one, but large numbers of bodies are found in and around the capital every single day, a result of the roiling civil war already under way there. These bodies ... commonly display a variety of signs of torture, including "gouged-out eyeballs, wounds in the head and genitals, broken bones of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns ... acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin ... missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails". The UN's chief anti-torture expert, Manfred Nowak, believes that torture in Iraq is now not only "totally out of hand" but "worse" than under dictator Saddam Hussein.
The DU thread where I first read this is here,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=2345140and here is a link to the Asia Times Online article --
which I highly recommend to everyone. (No registration is required.)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ05Ak02.htmlThe title of this article is
DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Twenty-one reasons Iraq is not workingBy Tom Engelhardt
Within the article is a good descriptive paragraph of its purpose and content:
So what exactly does "victory" in Bush's Iraq look like 1,288 days after the invasion of that country began with a "shock and awe" attack on downtown Baghdad? A surprising amount of information related to this has appeared in the press in recent weeks, but in purely scattershot form. Here, it's all brought together in 21 questions (and answers) that add up to a grim but realistic snapshot of Bush's Iraq. The attempt to reclaim the capital, dipped in a sea of blood in recent months - or the "battle of Baghdad", as the US administration likes to term it - is now the center of administration military strategy and operations.
This was one of those threads at DU which sank out of sight before enough people saw it and responded to keep it kicked, but I urge anyone reading this to also go read that full article at the Asia Times Online! The 21 questions format is excellent and the overview and history of Bush's war in Iraq makes it very easy to follow the summary laid out by the writer. It's a long read, but I hope many people make some time for it and think long and hard about what it reveals.
Finally, I have a few questions to ask, too -- all rhetorical, but all very important.
Does the above quote detailing the condition of dumped bodies in and around Baghdad indicate that the United States military in that country
condones a lot of this torture and murder going on under their noses? Could our own troops be
participating in some of it, or
teaching militia members methods of "information extraction" from citizens, or perhaps
learning new methods of torture from such militias?
Could we wake up in America in the not-too-far-distant future to find that these methods are being employed in our own country -- or by our military or intelligence operatives in secret prisons elsewhere, used on foreign captives and U.S. citizens alike?
Is is even remotely possible that historians will look back on this entire period from 2000 to 2006 in America and the world, survey the evidence of power grabs, of election fraud, of abuse of trust, of blatant lies and dirty tricks, and of pervasive criminal activities by this administration, and note that Americans were as tragically wronged by this "leader" as the German people were by Hitler in the 1930's?
And worst of all, is it possible that some day when the Bush government IS history and all of the darkest secrets that have been so well kept thanks to a compliant media and an incurious population are at long last revealed, will we find that there really isn't a lot of difference in the activities at America's hidden detention camps and the ones Hitler used for years to hide his shocking crimes?
What will the headlines look like then?
How will the world view us then, and how will we feel about ourselves?
Don't we care enough to do something about the danger before the damage gets much, much worse?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
