Letters to the Editor

Fred Hiatt on the noble glories of occupation The Washington Post editorialist says that mere airstrikes are bad because they result in civilian deaths, cause displacement and aid al-Qaida recruitment. Therefore, we should invade and occupy countries instead. Glenn Greenwald [2008-05-03]

• Two interrelated (and controversial) points

  In the first place, I see no indications that any sector of US political culture except the far Left has really faced up to the issue of implicit racism. I say 'implicit' because explicit racism is very properly condemned, but the WAY in which it is condemned contains a subtext, to the effect that it is cruel to make explicit the actual and concrete position of inferiority in which US Blacks are trapped - and the only explanation for this subtextual nuance is a widespread assumption that US Blacks DESERVE inferior status, which in turn is derived from a sense of cultural and geopolitical superiority, on which all US citizens are encouraged to rely, as a means of evading the horror of their real global actions over the entire span of their history. To say, well, Rowan, you're a Brit, we learned white supremacist imperialism from you, is true but irrelevant - the USA purports to be 'better than that,' and it isn't. The second point is that white supremacism is maintained largely via a mystifying proxy which is (a) religious rather than explicitly racial, and (b) Jewish rather than Christian - Christianity being re-written as supportive of Jewish global rights as progenitors of 'Western values.' Sorry to have to say that, because I am deeply in love with the Jewish people, no point in my trying to hide that.

  -- Rowan Berkeley
  [Read Rowan Berkeley's other letters]
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