Europeans insist that they’re morally superior to Americans. They say that they’re the peacemakers, we’re the warmongers. Our invasion of Iraq is used as the latest talking point they use to try and shore up their sagging self esteem.
Differences in foreign policy aside, the Euros also say that they inhabit the moral high ground on a personal level. If Americans really cared about their fellow man, they say, then we’d vote for local and state politicians that vow to abolish the death penalty. They’re not shy in condemning the practice as barbaric and brutal.
The BBC has published this news article, which details how American forensic experts are uncovering mass graves in Iraq with depressing regularity. Their latest find is a trench that contains the remains of hundreds of children and their mothers, some of whom were pregnant when they were tossed in the hole and the dirt shovelled on top.
The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. (snip)
The body of one woman was found still clutching a baby. The infant had been shot in the back of the head and the woman in the face. “The youngest foetus we have was 18 to 20 foetal weeks,” said US investigating anthropologist P Willey. “Tiny bones, femurs – thighbones the size of a matchstick.”
The remains of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims are being uncovered, evidence that can be used against Saddam in court. But the work is going slow because the European investigators have refused to participate. They’re afraid that the evidence they supply will be used to eventually put Saddam to death.
So the Americans are wrong to have invaded Iraq, which was the only way to end the slaughter and keep more children from being killed. And now the Americans are wrong to investigate the crimes since the dictator who’s responsible might have to face justice for them.
I’m having trouble seeing the moral superiority of the European position here.
(Big hat tip to blog goddess Natalie Solent.)