US-The Dark Side

Fatima Rizvi

Strange revelations are revealing a dark side of the US. The only redeeming feature is that all these revelations, or at least most of them, are coming out from within the US system and from US citizens. This raises the hope that the present administration wants a break from the dark past by moving to a more open, regulated and monitored arrangement.

First there was the sordid Saddam drama. His public humiliation and farcical trial with judges being changed and lawyers murdered-- and finally the video of his hurried hanging (on the eve of a major Muslim festival) that was conveniently 'leaked out". The only one who came out looking like a man with his dignity in tact was Saddam---a former US ally.

Then came the details of atrocious behavior by US military personnel of both sexes at the Abu Gharaib Prison in Baghdad. The sleazy details shown did no credit to those involved and showed them for what they were---marginally educated and cultureless products of a system without real values. Then there was Guantanamo---a facility born out of fear of those already in custody and a facility that inevitably was a modern version of Nazi concentration camps. Now streaming out are details of medieval type torture by US government agencies and personnel presumably authorized by those at the top. We are hearing of repeated multiple water-boardings, beatings, sexual humiliation, threats to rape the mothers of those being tortured and killing of their children. A declassified report by a CIA official is particularly damning because of the details given and its authenticity. Inevitably thoughts go back to the Nuremburg Trials and to the many atrocities that may have gone unreported. There is also the history of the wiping out of the Red Indian nation and the treatment of blacks in the US right up to the sixties. Muslims travelling to the US cannot forget the humiliation inflicted on them at US airports by uncouth, obese and marginally educated Homeland Security and TSA personnel. None of this happens at any other airport in the world. Nothing breeds hatred like humiliation and politeness can work wonders.

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