Selective Morality

When Americans heard of Jeremiah Wright sermonizing about “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”, most of them were outraged. They could not believe that someone in the country is actually saying that Americans in the World Trade Center did anything to deserve what happened on that fateful day. Even now, liberals and realists both get queasy when discussing America’s foreign policy and its repercussions – they are afraid to say what is obvious – that when you kill people in the rest of the world, when you meddle in their internal affairs, they will strike back.


Rarely has anyone been able to make that statement without fear of retribution – except for Ron Paul. But Ron Paul is different. Americans have gotten used to hearing some crazy shit from Ron Paul – he talks about going back to the Gold Standard, closing the Federal Reserve, letting corporations collapse in the middle of a deep recession, he will allow people to die in order to cleanse the market of the bad policies. He is okay with poor people dying of starvation or when they cannot afford health insurance. Hey, that is free market economics. So when Ron Paul says that America is the empire and America meddled with other countries’ internal affairs, Americans tend to ignore it. But even Ron Paul doesn’t say that Americans deserved 9/11 – not in as many words.

On 11-Mar, the 38-year old US Army staff sergeant left his forward operating base, by himself, in southern Afghanistan near Kandahar early Sunday. He reportedly knocked on several doors and entered at least two houses, where he allegedly shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children.

Days after, once the staff sergeant has been identified as Robert Bales, all we can see in the news is reports of the number of lives the soldier has saved, the trauma he faced, the mortgages he couldn’t pay, the homes he lost, the bloody wars he was a part of, being passed over for promotion, all subtly hinting at how the circumstances were to blame. The articles talk about what a loving father he was and such an adoring husband. He even underwent an anger management assessment way back in 2002 after he was charged with assault. Even this is somehow beamed on to us as a virtue.

He is an army combatant who murdered innocent women and children – 16 of them. But his neighbors “cannot see how this could have happened”. His comrades say that “there has to be very severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder involved. I just don't want him seen as some psychopath, because he is not.” When Americans murder and rape in the countries they are at war with, there are reasons. When others kill Americans, it is simply because they are barbarians and animals.

If the fathers or the husbands of the people murdered in that home were to come and kill 16 people in America tomorrow, you would not hear of PTSD, or family problems, or insanity pleas. America would go back to carpet bombing Afghanistan the next day. Because murdering Americans would be an act of terrorism.

Worst part is, a lot of Americans do not see this is as double standard. They wonder why there is anti-Americanism in the rest of the world, and most of them believe that it is because the rest of the world envies America for its wealth and freedom. No, there is Anti Americanism because the rest of the world can see this double standard. 

I love America for the values it stands for. Lincoln’s picture adorns my walls right next to Jefferson, Buddha and Gandhi. I strive to internalize the values that Clarence Darrow espoused. I have a lot of friends in America who I love and respect – I have learnt a lot from them. But blind patriotism shouldn't stop you from condemning what is wrong. In  fact, patriotism should push you to stand for what is right.