LettersWar, guns, abortion: America has lost claims to moral superiority
- A country that spends trillions on foreign wars, has more guns than citizens, cannot protect women’s reproductive rights and is incapable of addressing its violent past shouldn’t be leading the free world
Moral authority comprises many things: adhering to immutable truths, being of good character, embracing diversity in all of its forms, embodying a humanity that’s decent, lawful and peaceful.
For the self-proclaimed leader of the free world, America’s moral superiority is in decline. This decline is aided by its hypocrisy, national and foreign policy disasters, and failure to address its violent colonial past.
America is a nation forged by war, slavery, racism and religiosity. Following white settlement, as many as 95 per cent of indigenous Americans died from epidemics, atrocities and ethnic cleansing. Many were dispossessed, culturally suppressed, marginalised and impoverished.
Trillions have been expended on the US’ foreign wars, regime change and covert operations. Then United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan said the US-led war on Iraq was illegal and not in conformity with the UN charter. Up to 650,000 excess Iraqi deaths are estimated to have occurred during the invasion.