Tag Archives: American exceptionalism

American Atrocities at Abu Ghraib and the Paris Murders

According to news reports, one of the terrorists involved in the January 7 attacks on journalists and a kosher market in France was angered years earlier by pictures of the Abu Ghraib prison atrocities.

Americans appear to have forgotten those images of U.S. soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners in 2003. Prisoners were stripped naked, forced into humiliating positions, and otherwise inhumanely treated. The resulting scandal tarnished the reputation of the United States as a defender of human rights. China noted the hypocrisy of our issuance of human rights reports, detailing abuses in virtually every country on the globe, when we, obviously, have our own problems.

Nothing excuses terrorist murders, but sins (and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were certainly sins) tend to breed consequences spilling over into later suffering of innocents.

The talk of American exceptionalism signifies nothing if we don’t acknowledge that we have failings. Repentance for such failings is not a sign of weakness but a path toward a stronger nation.

 

Are Americans Exceptional?

Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor, wrote an article, “The West Unique, Not Universal” for Foreign Affairs in 1996. The Western alliance of nations had won the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything from Coca-Cola to democracy appeared unstoppable. Soon American exceptionalism would conquer the globe, we believed.

Perhaps not. Huntington listed several unique ancestors of Western civilization: the classical legacy, Western Christianity, European languages, separation of spiritual and temporal authority, rule of law, social pluralism with its civil society, representative bodies, and individualism. Huntington believed that when strong leaders (like Kemal Ataturk in Turkey) attempt to force Westernization on their non-Western citizens, they create “torn” societies.

Consider the upheaval in Iran that caused the repudiation of the Shah’s ties to the United States in 1979. Or the fallout from the more recent Arab spring revolutions and the brutal conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

The West developed unique characteristics, whose foundations Americans built on to create their own society. Our exceptionalism matters little, however, if we ignore the uniqueness of other civilizations. Some, more ancient than Western ones, perceive society in different ways.

We would do better to serve as example, not exporter or enforcer.