Its not so simple...

When reading different news stories, I found that deciding whether or not they fit Loewen's model was not as simple as it might appear. I don't think that this "sugar–coating" of America being the good guy is not always so obvious or so black and white. However I do think, as this following story demonstrates, that the there is certainly an element of "excusing" of American misbehavior.

The following article, entitled "Karzai blasts US troops for gruesome Afghan deaths", describes how some US soldiers murdered three civilians in Afghanistan for "entertainments after taking drugs". http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03/30/nato-service-member-killed-eastern-afghanistan/ ) The article continues to describe how these war crimes are not entirely unusual, how events like this have happened before. Initially, this can be seen as anti–Loewen: the article certainly shows the atrocities of US military troops! On a surface level, this is not sugar coated and it doesn't show the US in a flattering light.

However, as the web address shows, it says that "nato service member killed eastern afghanistan"...not a US soldier specifically! The article is also quick to try to persuade its audience that this is the "exception". It even goes so far as to quote the Afghan president Karzai, saying "Without a doubt the Americans are very good people, just like the Afghan people and other peoples of the world. They are not cruel people, they helped us with their own resources to develop our education and health sectors. They are working day and night to help us..."

In a way, its as if the article is trying to excuse this atrocious act of violence, by saying, well, at least it doesn't happen that often. The article also goes on to describe different acts of violence against US and NATO troops, again, as if to say, "we may have killed some innocent people, but they are killing innocent people too!"

I take these subtle tactics as ways that Fox News tries to excuse the horrible things that American soldiers have done, by pointing fingers at everyone except ourselves. In this way,this is very much like Loewen's view, of America being the "international good guy". Its a little ironic too, that the US is in Afghanistan to "keep the peace", yet look at the trouble we personally are causing some of the civilians in Afghanistan. As Loewen, says, "Today, this 'peacekeeping burden' has gotten out of hand." And that it has.

The American Pageant article also is guilty of this idea of sort of "sharing the blame." It discusses postwar Europe, and talking about how BOTH the US and the Soviet Union were"unaccustomed their great power–roles, unfamiliar with or even antagonistic to each other, and each believing in the universal applicability of its own particular ideology, America and the USSR suddenly found themselves staring eyeball–to–eyeball over the prostrate body of battered Europe..." (888). Again, the book is quick to point out that it wasn't just the US, it was "them" too! I think that this is more dangerous, because it is so much more subtle. "We" can never be completely in the wrong. When we are wrong, it can only be portrayed in light of other people's wrongs. In this way, the article does fit Loewen's model: "authors portray a heroic state"( 220).