|
This
happens rarely – very rarely. An apology from
the President of the United States, not for personal
lapses, but for the rare slippage in the workings
of America’s virtuous, divinely blessed, civilizing
mission to the benighted world.
Most
Americans truly believe – take this to be self-evident
– that the United States is not only the world’s
greatest country, but it has always been the last
great hope of earth, that Americans have always been
willing, more than any other Western power, to take
on the White Man’s burden, to bring life, liberty
and happiness to the rest of mankind. This is a testament
to the power of American media: that it can claim
to be the world’s freest media and yet control
– like no other ‘free’ media –
what an overwhelming majority of Americans know and
believe about their country. And what they know and
believe is America the free, pure and virtuous.
Day
after day, the mandarins and media in this country
work tirelessly, cleverly, to project an image of
an America that protects freedoms at home and abroad;
an America that has time and again shed its blood
to rid foreign lands of murderous tyrannies; an America
that cares, that responds with alacrity to famines
and calamities abroad; an American that contributes
men, money and ideas to bring prosperity to the backward
races; an America that has patiently served as an
honest broker in the dispute between Israelis and
Palestinians.
As
a result, year after year, most Americans are kept
in the dark, unaware of the actual, the real America
– the only kind seen by much of the rest of the
world. This is the America that daily employs its
might to mangle the lives of hundreds of millions,
that pushes a globalization that devastates the economies
of the Third World, that instructs and arms foreign
tyrannies to terrorize their own people, that aids
and abets an Israeli machine that is determined to
extirpate the Palestinians. This America acts in the
name of freedom, in any way that it sees fit and necessary,
to keep the world safe for American capital. However,
this dark side of America is nearly completely, nearly
always, whitewashed by the myth-making powers of America’s
elites.
Occasionally,
this myth-making machine will let slip a few snapshots
of the real, the actual America. In fact, such slippages
are functional; they serve to validate the trust of
the duped and faithful in our ‘free’ media.
Generally, these revelations appear long after the
fact. They are also quickly explained away. Americans
are told that this is for their own good: they serve
higher American values. When they cannot be explained
away, they are described as unavoidable lapses, human
failings of a few. These lapses remind the faithful
to be thankful that the system works well nearly all
the time. No apology is tendered. None is demanded.
Yet
the matter of the torture of Iraqi prisoners has quickly
produced a storm of indignation from the mandarins
and the media. It has led to calls for investigations,
demands for the resignation of the Secretary of Defense,
two television appearances by the President before
Arab audiences, and, incredibly, even a feeble Presidential
apology. In the words of Scott McClellan, the White
House Press Secretary, “The President is sorry
for what occurred and the pain it has caused.”
I
am assuming that the “pain” in question
is the one inflicted by Americans on the Iraqis, as
well as anyone who can feel the pain of the Iraqi
victims. Or is the President talking of America’s
pain over the actual, the real America, now irrevocably,
unforgettably, caught on camera? For the history books.
For posterity.
In
any case, that’s quite decent for starters. Incredibly,
the name of a sitting American President has been
linked to the subject of Arab pain, a pain that has
an acknowledged American provenance. It must be a
first, for any American President – perhaps,
any Western leader. We are speaking of the pain of
the “natives” – inferior sand niggers,
in this case – the pain of whose miserable lives
could never earn our sympathy. We do not share in
the pain of the natives.
Has
the President undergone another conversion? If he
has, and now, he, truly and sincerely, feels the pain
inflicted by a few Americans on their Iraqi victims,
will he follow up by acknowledging the Iraqis who
were killed and maimed to advance the interests of
Zionists and Oil Corporations? Will he also set up
museums to commemorate the deaths of a million and
a half Iraqi civilians killed in a previous American
war that targeted their civilian infrastructure and
followed it up with death-dealing sanctions? Is it
just possible that at last the President will begin
to recognize the Palestinians as humans, and atone
for the pain that he and his predecessors have inflicted
upon them for more than fifty years?
Apart
from the faithful, no one believes that the President’s
apology is sincere. In fact, it looks comical –
comical because it is based on false premises. We
are behaving as if the sexual humiliation of Iraqi
prisoners is the first outrage inflicted by the United
States on the Muslims. It is unlikely that the Muslims
have forgotten, or will soon forget, the hundred lacerations
inflicted upon them by America’s conjugal embrace
of the Israeli Occupation, by its support for corrupt
monarchies and dictatorships in the Islamicate world,
by the genocidal first Gulf War, by the strangulating
sanctions against Iraq that took the lives of three-quarters
of a million Iraqi children, and by the routine demonization
of Islam by preachers close to this White House. It
is comical when a tormentor inflicts a hundred wounds
on his victim and then starts apologizing for stepping
on his toes.
The
apology is comical because the United States has hitherto
acted on the premise that the Arabs only respect a
stout stick. This is the advice that the Zionists
have regularly dished out to their American pupils.
In part, this was the advice on which President Bush
launched his invasion of Iraq. Topple Saddam, the
Arab strongman, and all the Arabs will instantly acknowledge
US-Israeli hegemony as the greatest gift to them since
the descent of the Qur’an. So, isn’t it
a bit comical so soon after the invasion to come apologizing
to the Arabs? Actually, it is worse than comical.
It has to be stupid. It will surely be read by many
Muslims – not least, those who are in the Islamist
resistance – as a sign of weakness, an admission
that America’s belligerent approach isn’t
paying off, that the world’s only super power
is afraid of Arab outrage.
The
President’s apology is also targeted at domestic
audiences. The pictures of American liberators sexually
torturing Iraqis do not make the best commercials
for America’s high civilizing mission. They might
just undermine America’s faith in its civilizing
mission, the principal ideological prop for its formidable
military machine. Some quick action was necessary.
Americans were assured that the cases of torture were
local, not systemic, and their perpetrators are being
punished. There was nothing to worry. America’s
civilizing mission could not be derailed by the actions
of a few rogue elements. It must continue to march
forward through the jungles, swamps and deserts of
the Third World, bringing freedom, hope and prosperity
to the inferior breeds who cannot yet manage their
own affairs. The civilizing mission is the sacred
trust of the White Man.
Still,
we must ask, if there isn’t an element of panic
in the White House response to the scandal of Iraqi
prison torture. The whole administration is apologizing,
and doing so repeatedly, promptly and with little
urging from anyone. The sight of the United States
– swaggering, contemptuous of others, unilateralist
– apologizing, somehow, makes an eerie sight.
Does this suggest that after all the damned lies to
cover for the war, after all the blustering as these
lies were exposed, this Administration is finally
losing its nerve, losing its cool? Could it be that
they too know better than what they put out? Could
it be that they too fear that the game they started
in Iraq – at the cost of American and Iraqi lives
– is over?
References:
[1]
George Will, "Time for Bush to See The Realities
of Iraq," Washington Post, May 4, 2004).
M.
Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern
University. His last book, Poverty from the Wealth
of Nations, was published by Palgrave in 2000. Visit
his webpage at http://msalam.net.
© M. Shahid Alam
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
