Surely Americans who live in the United States enjoy "the better aspects of our culture, civil liberties, etc. [which] are largely the result of leftist and liberal agitation," but dead American Indians, Vietnamese, Guatemalans, etc. cannot enjoy them. They are DEAD, after all. Surviving American Indians have had at least a few opportunities to enjoy the fruits of their own struggles against colonialism, as well as those of other leftists and liberals', but "the better aspects of our culture, civil liberties, etc." don't do anything for the Vietnamese, Guatemalans, and others who live outside the United States. So, your argument against "anti-Americanism" is likely to fuel it, as it sounds like "we Americans have gained quite a bit from living in America, though you, foreigners who are victims of Washington's actions, may have grievously and irreparably suffered."
There would have to be a better argument against "anti-Americanism."
First of all, there are two kinds of anti-Americanism: "anti-America"-ism and anti-"Americanism." The latter, criticism of and opposition to "Americanism" understood as American exceptionalism, is quite justified. It is the former, "anti-America"-ism, that is the problem, as it indiscriminately amalgamates citizens and residents of all classes, races, genders, and political persuasions who happen to live here into one indivisible entity called "America." That's the error of Ward Churchill, which ironically is the same error committed by champions of "Americanism."
Churchill wrote:
<blockquote>There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .
Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire -- the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved - and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" -- a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" -- counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in - and in many cases excelling at -- it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
<http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html></blockquote>
In Churchill's view of America, there aren't any workers here who are themselves exploited by the Empire of Capital and therefore are at least potentially agents capable of transforming America from a capitalist empire to a democracy, a socialist republic.
Churchill's excess, however, should not be used to justify the opposite but equally absurd view that all Americans are innocent of all moral and political responsibility solely by virtue of their being Americans, that there is -- and can possibly be -- no little or big Eichmann here.
Cf. Monday, January 10, 2005
When Doctors Go to War
Steven H. Miles concluded last year: "Government documents show that the US military medical system failed to protect detainees' human rights, sometimes collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards, and failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings" ("Abu Ghraib: Its Legacy for Military Medicine," Lancet 364, August 21, 2004).
(It says a lot about class that the whistle blower who exposed torture at Abu Ghraib was not a medical doctor but a soldier whose mother "lives in a cramped trailer steps from a railroad track, at the edge of a line of trim clapboard houses" [Hanna Rosin, "When Joseph Comes Marching Home: In a Western Maryland Town, Ambivalence About the Son Who Blew the Whistle at Abu Ghraib," Washington Post, May 17, 2004, p. C1] -- Spec. Joseph Darby.)
M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks corroborate Miles' findings and argue that U.S. "physicians and other medical professionals breached their professional ethics and the laws of war by participating in abusive interrogation practices," contradicting the Pentagon's denial that they did:
Not only did caregivers pass health information to military intelligence personnel; physicians assisted in the design of interrogation strategies, including sleep deprivation and other coercive methods tailored to detainees' medical conditions. Medical personnel also coached interrogators on questioning technique. ("When Doctors Go to War," New England Journal of Medicine 352.1, January 6, 2005)The American Civil Liberties Union has made "Records Released in Response to Torture FOIA Request" available online, so you can see some of their evidence for yourself.
What is particularly chilling is that, having interviewed the medical personnel complicit in military interrogations (some of whom spoke on the record while others did so confidentially), Bloche and Marks discovered that "[p]hysicians who did such work tend not to see these practices as unethical":
On the contrary, a common understanding among those who helped to plan interrogations is that physicians serving in these roles do not act as physicians and are therefore not bound by patient-oriented ethics. In an interview, Dr. David Tornberg, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, endorsed this view. Physicians assigned to military intelligence, he contended, have no doctor-patient relationship with detainees and, in the absence of life-threatening emergency, have no obligation to offer medical aid.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In helping to plan and execute interrogation strategies, did doctors breach medical ethics? Military physicians and Pentagon officials make a case to the contrary. Doctors, they argue, act as combatants, not physicians, when they put their knowledge to use for military ends. A medical degree, Tornberg said, is not a "sacramental vow" -- it is a certification of skill. When a doctor participates in interrogation, "he's not functioning as a physician," and the Hippocratic ethic of commitment to patient welfare does not apply. According to this view, as long as the military maintains a separation of roles between clinical caregivers and physicians with intelligence-gathering responsibilities, assisting interrogators is legitimate. (emphasis added, January 6, 2005)(See, also, M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks, "Doctor's Orders -- Spill Your Guts," Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2005.)
The banality of evil indeed. The U.S. medical personnel interviewed by Bloche and Marks compartmentalize and then subordinate their individual conscience, professional ethics, and international laws to dictates of military service, and in their compartmentalization and subordination echoes the final plea of Adolf Eichmann:
I cannot recognize the verdict of guilty. . . . It was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. . . . Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient, having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. . . . I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. . . . At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. (emphasis added, "Eichmann's Final Plea")
That future that Eichmann predicted is here now -- or rather it has been with us always, invisible only to those who thought: "It Can't Happen Here."
<http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/01/when-doctors-go-to-war.html> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>