American Views Abroad

 
The prime time evening news was almost surreal yesterday. There they were, the second woman US Secretary of State twisting and turning words and condoning 'renditions' but claiming the US does not torture (of course, that depends on one's definition of torture), and the first woman, and former East German, Chancellor calling for 'transparency' and for respecting international law. There was a complete mix-up if the US admitted a mistake or not and what the former German government knew or not. Meanwhile, the newspapers here report in detail about the plight of the German citizen who was hauled away, drugged and held under horrible conditions for months without access to lawyers or the rule of law, and then released because it was all an incident of mistaken identity. Of course, he is not allowed to enter the US even though the ACLU is suing the CIA on his behalf. Take a deep breath and repeat: times are different now because of terrorism.

Once upon a time, there were many who used to justify slavery. Remember the concept of blacks only counting as 2/3's of a person for the census, but were owned by their masters? Words twisted and turned so that people could be counted, but not really and all for politics.

Once upon a time, we used to believe in following the letter of the law. Remember going to see that film about the Nuremburg trials and how Spencer Tracy lectured the German judge played by Burt Lancaster? Wasn't there a great quote in there about law and morality and how Lancaster looked so downcast because he got it all wrong?

The times, they have changed. Last Saturday I met an American friend of over 20 years here. Her brother is presently serving in Afghanistan (after having done a year in Iraq) and is due home in March. Then her sister leaves for another tour in Iraq. The family is deeply divided on the war, but only one is gun-ho war, others are not admitting it openly but seem to be souring on it, and she is totally anti-war. Of course, this gets put aside just hoping her relatives survive. What she told me is exactly how I have felt for months now: each time you think the news can't possibly get any worse, it does. It has become unbearable just listening to it.

Rice Visit Fails to Build Bridges is Der Spiegel's take on her stop-over here yesterday at
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,389057,00.html.
- posted by Gloria @ 8:03 PM