Selective Indignation over bin Laden Video

By Tim Wise, AlterNet. Posted December 21, 2001.

The reviews came in quickly. And to no one's surprise, the verdict was "two thumbs down."

"Can you believe how ruthless this man is? How cold blooded?"

"That monster has no regard for human life."

"What kind of person laughs about the deaths of thousands of innocent people?"

These are but a few of the righteously indignant comments heard over the course of the last two weeks: the reactions of journalists, U.S. political leaders, and everyday folks to the recently aired Osama bin Laden tape. Therein, bin Laden appears to take credit for the atrocities of 9/11 and to cavalierly dismiss any moral concerns about the loss of life involved.

To the extent the tape is an accurate translation, it is certainly a disgusting display of ethical depravity. But really now, did we need grainy VHS footage to demonstrate that Osama bin Laden was a thug? Or was its dissemination primarily for the purpose of re-inflaming the American public?

Of course there is nothing so true about indignation as the simple fact that it's usually applied in a highly selective fashion. So it was easy to condemn the horrific rationalizations for brutality offered up by Soviet Commissars or their proxies during the cold war, for example, but much more difficult to apply the same moral calculus to the statements of America's allies: often brutal dictators whose regimes we supported no matter how many innocent civilians they butchered, tortured or "disappeared."

Certainly there is little reason to doubt that if someone had trained a video camera on U.S. clients like Duvalier, Marcos, Somoza, Pinochet or Suharto, we would have had the chance to be regaled with dismissive rationalizations of murder from them as well. Inhumanity, cruelty and barbarity, as it turns out, have never been deal-breakers for gaining the support of the United States government, after all.

What is of course interesting -- or at least would be to a nation insistent on something so mundane as consistency -- is how Americans react with horror to the cold, calculating comments of bin Laden, and yet brush aside (or better yet, fail to even learn about) the equally cold, calculating ways in which their elected officials and other U.S. spokespersons have regularly dispensed with human life, absent so much as a twinge of remorse.

After all, are the things bin Laden said really any more morally troublesome than the comments of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright? Remember, it was Albright who explained, also on camera, that even though roughly half-a-million children in Iraq had died from U.S. sanctions and bombing, ultimately, this cost was "worth it."

In fact, the calculation that civilian deaths are "worth it" has a healthy pedigree, even extending to the Bush family itself. While George W. might become apoplectic at the dismissive manner in which Osama bin Laden shrugs off innocent lives, one doubts that he has ever lectured his father about the same thing. This, despite the fact that when Poppa Bush was asked whether capturing Manuel Noriega had been worth the deaths of the thousands of innocent Panamanians killed by U.S. forces in 1989, he responded that while "every human life is precious," ultimately "yes, it has been worth it."

Are we to suppose that merely mouthing the words "every human life is precious," somehow makes the acceptance of mass killing less objectionable? More decent? Or instead, might not such a schism between what we say and what we do be even more disconcerting than similar pap spewing from the lips of bin Laden? At least Osama isn't a phony.

As we bask in our rage over the bloodthirsty ruminations of our current Public Enemy Number One, perhaps we should also be willing to roll the tape, so to speak, on any number of equally disturbing comments by red, white and blue Americans.

Like the U.S. soldiers who bombed Iraqi forces even after they had surrendered on the field of battle in Operation Desert Storm -- a certifiable war crime -- and laughed about their actions, calling the strafing "a turkey shoot," and likening it to "shooting fish in a barrel." As one of America's finest put it: "It's the biggest Fourth of July show you've ever seen. And to see those tanks just ‘boom,' and more stuff keeps spewing out of them ... it's wonderful."

Or how about Ed Korry, Ambassador to Chile in 1973, when the U.S. sponsored the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende, and replaced it with one of the most brutal dictatorships in the hemisphere's history? Prior to Allende's victory, Korry was on record as saying: "Once Allende comes to power we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty."

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »