Obama Offers Definition of ‘Anti-Americanism’

By Robert Barsocchini

12 January, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Obama has for approximately seven years censored thousands of pictures documenting US torture of Iraqis committed during the illegal US invasion of their country. The censored photos are supposedly “worse” than those leaked from the US torture/snuff facility at Abu Ghraib.

The stated reason for censoring the images is that they would “inflame anti-American opinion”. Thus, by the president’s definition, “pro-Americans” are people who support or are apathetic towards torture and, presumably, the many other forms of imperio-terrorism, including aggression, while “anti-Americans” are people opposed to torture and other forms of imperio-terrorism.

This inadvertent admission on the part of the White House – the most revealing kind – accurately captures what US government studies find is a prevailing motivation behind resistance to US and Western brutality: the brutality itself.

If the US had not committed this torture, Obama admits, there would be less reason for anti-torture/anti-American opinion and action to be expressed. But since the US is a state that tortures, and always has been, the only available option is to try to censor from the world the images and evidence of US torture, and thereby attempt to reduce expression of anti-torture/anti-American opinion and action.

Also see: Obama Tortures, Too

Robert Barsocchini focuses on force dynamics, national and global, and also writes professionally for the film industry. Updates on Twitter. Author’s review of the historical background to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.