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[Torture] “is not the norm.”
-- Mike Pannek, Abu Ghraib prison warden.
“This is not who we are.”
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the US massacre of 16 Afghan villagers.
“This is not who we are.”
-- General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, on Koran burning
“This is not who we are.”
-- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on troops posing with enemy body parts
“This is not who we are.”
-- Secretary of State Clinton, also on troops posing with enemy body parts
Spying by the New York Police on Muslims in Newark, NJ, which the Newark Police Chief was alerted to, is “not who we are”
-- Newark Mayor Cory Booker
“I can tell you something all of you know already - that using pepper spray on peaceful protesters runs counter to our values. It does not reflect well on this university and it absolutely is not who we are.”
-- UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who ordered campus police to use force to clear peaceful student occupiers from the campus, leading to pepper spraying of students
Ripping families apart by deporting the undocumented parents of American-born children is “not who we are.”
-- President Barack Obama
“This larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government, refund everybody's money, and let everyone write their own rules, and tell everyone they're on their own -- that's not who we are.”
-- President Barack Obama
“You can't say, well, we developed trade and the economic relations first and the disregard of human rights. That's not who we are. We are the United States of America.”
-- Sasha Gong, director of the China branch of Voice of America
The latest PR catch phrase from business, administration, military, state and local officials after some atrocity or other is that whatever happened, it is certainly “not who we are,” a phrase appropriately initially uttered by the Vietnam War commander, Gen. William Westmoreland, with reference to the My Lai slaughter of 400 women, children and old men, all civilians, by a group of US soldiers.
Yet if all these abominations are not “who we are,” then why do our business, police and military and government institutions generate so many examples of obscene, horrific or criminal behavior?
...It is time to stop pretending that we are not also accountable. It is time to end militarism at home and abroad and to put people before profits. It won't be the militarists and the profiteers who make such changes, though. It can only be us.
I agree completely that your conclusion follows logically, except I don't accept the premise that brutality is the norm in the United States. In a group of over 310 million people, in war time or in political rhetoric, there is going to be some "brutality," but the norm, the average behavior of Americans? I just can't agree.
When brutality becomes the norm, we can no longer say "This is not who we are."
I think I would have an easier time accepting the argument that Americans are corrupt than the argument that they are brutal. I agree with you, we used to, and still should, aspire to decency, morality, and greatness.
this is the USA and we used to aspire to greatness. Now we wallow in corruption.