“As Americans we are inclined to be a bit insular,” writes Joan Chittister. “We see ourselves as the centre of the globe, thebiggest, the best, the latest, the smartest, the most advanced, the mostpowerful, the most right, the paragon of all paragons in all things.”

This much-travelled and deeply-anchored Benedictine is free enough and American enough to criticizethe appalling misadventures of the current American administration and themost incompetent president in living memory.

This is a presidency which has deeply shamed the American people withits imperial bluster and swagger, its thumbing its nose at internationalinstitutions and norms and its ignorance about how the rest of the worldlives.

For many, the degraded revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib are notsurprising. To the average decent American, they have been a staggering blowto a psyche already wounded by 9/11. Those of us north of the 49th parallelcan easily and willingly testify to the basic goodness and generosity ofAmerican people and can say that these revelations are indeeduncharacteristic of Americans. They are however, totally in character with theforeign policy of the United States, certainly in the post war period.

We should recognize then that torture and wanton destruction in placeslike Fallujah are not so much reflections of Americans, but symptoms ofempire. Surprisingly, it was the conservative columnist George Will who madethe link between torture and empire. He said, “Americans must not flinchfrom absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison.And they should not flinch from this fact: that pornography is almostinevitably part of what empire looks like … empire is always aboutdomination.”

Stunning, hubristic blindness

What shocks many is that commentators like Will and too much of the Americancorporate press have been enthusiastic proponents of American power for over40 years. An imperial power, be it Spain, Britain, France or in this case,the United States will do anything it has to do to keep its relentlessappetite for consumer goods flowing, whether it is 30 per cent of theworld’s energy or strawberries in winter. And the attitude will always be: Idon’t want to know where it comes from or why it is so cheap.

“Ten thousand Iraqi civilians dead you say? No WMD? Saddam had nothing todo with 9/11? I did not know that. Five hundred thousand Iraqi childrenstarved during the blockade of the 1990s. Too bad, I’m busy worrying aboutFriends and Sex in the City and who got voted off the island. Even thoughfifty per cent of us do not vote (the worst record in the western world) Iam sure we are exporting democracy to the ‘Eye-rakees,’” as Lynndie England,the sad fall girl with the dog collar, called her Arab prisoners.

It is this stunning hubristic blindness which the “ideologicalinstitutions — the schools, the media and much of scholarship,” as NoamChomsky keeps repeating — a worn-out mantra extolling U.S virtues, all factsto the contrary, one of which is that that the U.S. has a profound concernfor human rights and the raising of living standards and democratization.

Why would anybody be amazed at American torture when hundreds ofthousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, mutilated and murdered inrecord numbers by thugs trained at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning,Georgia, a scandalous insult to true American values and which tens ofthousands of brave Americans have been trying to close in the past decades.Guatemala alone has been a charnel house since the U.S. government subvertedthe Arbenz government in 1954 at the request of the United Fruit Company.

Negroponte: a classic case study

Why is it that no senator, congressperson or the so-called “free press” hasraised their voice when the ultimate insider, John Negroponte, was named thenew ambassador to Iraq as of July 1. From Quito to Mexico City to Manila toTegucigalpa, Negroponte has done the empire’s bidding.

In 1981, he was sentby Ronald Reagan to turn Honduras into a military command post against theSandinistas in nearby Nicaragua. It was here that according to theBaltimore Sun, Negroponte allied himself with General Augusto Alvarez, abrutal army officer who had learned his trade in the Dirty War in Argentinain the late 1970s. Alvarez headed the notorious Battalion 316, a rampagingdeath squad trained and supplied by the CIA. It used shock and suffocationdevices in interrogations. Prisoners were “often kept naked and, when nolonger useful killed and buried in unmarked graves.” As well, the Sun saidthat the embassy knew all this and were told to omit any references tothese abuses in their reports. Alvarez was finally deposed by his fellowofficers and Negroponte returned to the U.S.

Make no mistake. The breaches of international law are systematic andinstitutionalized, as monitors like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW)have stated. “The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselvesas they abused prisoners, suggests they had nothing to fear from theirsuperiors,” said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth. Despite the swiftdamage control and the sacrificial offerings of low-ranking recruits, mostobservers are not fooled. The rot is deep and institutional.

“There’sdefinitely a cover up,” said Sgt. Samuel Provance who was part of MilitaryIntelligence stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. “People are eithertelling themselves or being told to be quiet.”

As Chittister said, America is an isolated nation, largely ignorant ofother cultures and peoples. Their soldiers speak no Arabic and have nounderstanding of Iraqi culture. Paul Bremer, their man in charge, has nobackground at all, while his British counterpart speaks fluent Arabic. As ahigh-ranking British officer told London’s Daily Telegraph, “The Americanuse of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threatthey are facing. They do not see the Iraqi people the way we see them. Theyview them as subhuman. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life.Their attitude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful. As far as they areconcerned Iraq is a bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.”

Canadian response

For Canadians, often content to gloat over U.S. insularity, Alex Neve, thesecretary-general of Amnesty International, has some wise advice. Hesuggests after “the nightmarish images of Somalia in 1992, our house is notin order.” The case of Mahar Arar, handed over to Syrian torturers withpossible Canadian complicity is worrisome. We are less than transparent incases like this. Neve points to our enthusiasm for new trade with China“where torture is endemic, countrywide.” Further, we have yet to sign a newinternational treaty that could make a difference in combating torture.

As well, our immigration system has a long way to go in its decision todeport individuals to countries which torture. Finally, Neve faults Canadafor our timidity in rebuking the U.S. government for ignoring internationallaw in Guantanamo. He concludes, “We need to actively and visibly engage ourfriend over Abu Ghraib. Please let us not just shake our heads. Let us makethis the beginning of the end.”

The effete response of Prime Minister Paul Martin overthe latest civilian onslaught in Gaza on May 19 is a good example. Itdeserved more than “This is very troubling.”