The value of life

Brian Cloughley analyzes how Americans value the lives of non-Americans in light of the recent cold-blooded murder by American troops in Iraq of an Italian intelligence officer who had helped in the release of an Italian hostage (snippet):

....Iraqi lives do not matter. Just as in Hitler's Germany the Nazis referred to various sections of the population (Jews, gypsies and other 'antisocial elements') as the "untermenschen" -- the sub-humans -- so do US troops and the crazed bigots who bay for blood refer to Iraqis as "ragheads" -- the sub-humans. The Nazi regime was founded and fostered by people who thought along the lines of "Too bad the US troops didn't shoot her in the head and been done with trouble making people like her . . .". If people are trouble-makers, well, don't try to live with them ; don't try to understand them ; don't try to treat them as human beings: just shoot them. Or torture them. Or both. What the hell? The reasoning is that they are different to the superior people and therefore they should not be allowed to exist. The attitude of millions of Americans is exactly that of the German supporters of fascism in the 1930s and early 1940s. They were encouraged to think of themselves as the Master Race and there were whole nations whose populations could be treated as inferiors, and they took pride in doing just that. The present wave of hysterical intolerance in the US makes the McCarthy years of persecution look benign, because the idea has been planted by Bush and his people that US citizens are superior in every possible way. There can be no admission of frailty, and no acceptance of equality. International law and treaties are ignored or treated with contempt, and human dignity has become irrelevant. Hysterical ultra-nationalism is thriving and gathering pace. The director of the slippery slope to totalitarianism has beckoned his citizens, and they are responding with enthusiasm to his encouragement. War crimes are being committed by US troops and spooks on an extraordinary scale all round the world, but the biggest war crime is taking place in Washington: it is the twisting of the minds of the American people.

The twisting of American minds begins in school and is perpetuated by the corporate/government-run U.S. media. Most times it is subtle but nevertheless it is omnipresent. I know, I am also a victim of it, and only by exposing myself to the rest of the world through travel and untarnished media have I learned to appreciate the equal value of all lives. The fact that our country undervalues the worth of foreign lives makes us less valuable to the rest of the world.