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marmar

(77,084 posts) Thu Oct 8, 2015, 10:08 AM Oct 2015

Will Pitt: The Deadly Fraud of "American Exceptionalism"

The Deadly Fraud of "American Exceptionalism"

Thursday, 08 October 2015 09:54
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

Doubtless you have heard more than once the term "American Exceptionalism." It implies, in short, that we are somehow special, different, superior. We are the "city upon a hill" whose freedoms and accomplishments set us apart. Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase midway through the 19th century, and it has enjoyed constant deployment by politicians and pundits ever since, because it lights a warm bulb of self-satisfaction in many bellies ... and people feeling good about themselves are easier to convince. Salesmen thrived on this axiom before Babylon's bricks were laid.

For the sake of comparison, here's something exceptional: MÇdecins Sans Frontiäres. Founded in France, the organization is most commonly known in the US as Doctors Without Borders. Made up of more than 30,000 medical professionals, administrators and logistical experts, this organization provides vital health care in places mired in war and strife: Sudan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Afghanistan ... sadly, the list has included some 70 countries over the intervening years, and does not stop. Military personnel have a saying: "Run to the sound of the guns." Doctors Without Borders volunteers do exactly the same thing.

This past weekend, Doctors Without Borders volunteers were treating people in a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, when the building erupted in fire and screaming. A US airstrike by a massive AC-130 gunship laid an ocean of ordnance on the building at fifteen-minute intervals for more than an hour, and when it was over, 22 people were dead including three children and ten Doctors Without Borders staff members. One nurse who survived recounted how the hospital was all but destroyed, and when the survivors went in to look, they found six patients on fire in their hospital beds.

For its part, the US said it wasn't us, then said it might have been us, then said the hospital was a nest of Taliban fighters - a claim the doctors dispute vehemently - before saying Afghan officials asked us to do it. Yesterday, President Obama personally apologized to Dr. Joanne Liu, the organization's international president, for the attack. Doctors Without Borders is not having it, and is not mincing words. Immediately after the attack, the organization's General Director, Christopher Stokes, said, "We reiterate that the main hospital building, where medical personnel were caring for patients, was repeatedly and very precisely hit during each aerial raid, while the rest of the compound was left mostly untouched. We condemn this attack, which constitutes a grave violation of International Humanitarian Law." The organization's Executive Director, Jason Cone, described it as the "darkest couple of days in our organization's history," before going on to call the attack a "war crime." After the apology, Dr. Liu demanded an independent investigation into the incident. ...................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33155-the-deadly-fraud-of-american-exceptionalism