We are shocked by reports of people’s cruelty, believing ourselves above such behavior. The Bataan death march killed many, and we condemned it as an example of oriental brutality. Were we less brutal when we marched the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears, punishing them for their successful adaptation to our American ways? Our agents at Abu Ghraib mimicked tactics we used to torture the Philippines, who resisted our takeover of their country. We make much of the treatment of American POWs in Asian prisons, failing to mention the 60,000 American POWs died in American prisons during our Civil War. Ignoring our lapses, our spin masters proclaim our exceptionalism bamboozling us. Foreigners find such prentensions ridiculous. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States and Chomsky’s “Who Rules the World” will help you demythologize our history and objectively appraise our posture. As democratic citizens, we are held responsible for governmental and corporate abuses. Politicians claim to the contrary willful ignorance will not exonerate us or grant us innocence.

The smokescreen of American exceptionalism enables our leaders to ignore rulings of international bodies when they inconvenience us or our friends. Our aid enables Israel’s government to build settlements prohibited by UN resolutions. We insist that we are exceptional as a nation of laws. What law allows us to assassinate persons accused of being our enemies without indictment or trial by a jury of their peers? Are our enemies those who rock our boat: the priests and nuns who preach liberation theology, labor leaders, reporters or the staffs of Doctors without Borders neutral hospitals? Our president declares, “You are either for us or against us.” What the world sees is a superpower whose only law is “Might makes right.”

Unburdened by ideas of our exceptionalism, we might join with others in devising equitable ways of sharing our planet’s resources: a genuine right to life movement.

John Gibson

Owatonna