Americans have lost their ability for introspection, thereby revealing their astounding hypocrisy to the world.

US War Secretary Robert Gates has condemned the Associated Press and a reporter, Julie Jacobson, embedded with US troops in Afghanistan, for taking and releasing a photo of a US Marine who was wounded in action and died from his injury.

The photographer was on patrol with the Marines when they came under fire. She found the courage and presence of mind to do her job. Her reward is to be condemned by the warmonger Gates as "insensitive." Gates says her employer, the Associated Press, lacks "judgment and common decency."

The American Legion jumped in and denounced the Associated Press for a "stunning lack of compassion and common decency."

For the American War Secretary it is a photo that is insensitive, not America's assertion of the right to determine the fate of Afghanistan with bombs and soldiers.

The exceptional "virtuous nation" does not think it is insensitive for America's bombs to blow innocent villagers to pieces. On September 4, the day before Gates' outburst over the "insensitive" photo, Agence France Presse reported from Afghanistan that a US/Nato air strike had killed large numbers of villagers who had come to get fuel from two tankers that had been hijacked from negligent and inattentive occupation forces:

"'Nobody was in one piece. Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere. Those who were away from the fuel tanker were badly burnt,' said 32-year-old Mohammad Daud, depicting a scene from hell. The burned-out shells of the tankers, still smoking in marooned wrecks on the riverbank, were surrounded by the charred-meat remains of villagers from Chahar Dara district in Kunduz province, near the Tajik border. Dr. Farid Rahid, a spokesperson in Kabul for the ministry of health, said up to 250 villagers had been near the tankers when the air strike was called in."

What does the world think of the United States? The American War Secretary and a US military veterans association think a photo of an injured and dying American soldier is insensitive, but not the wipeout of an Afghan village that came to get needed fuel.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts271.html