Exporting values

To the editor:

This week’s papers addressed the 45-day sentence given an Army lieutenant for ordering his soldiers to push two Iraqi civilians off of a bridge, killing one of them. As I reflect on the lack of justice given to those soldiers and, indeed, to our own president for sending these troops to Iraq under false pretenses, I ponder the question: What American values are we exporting to the world?

Of course, when we look on our own history, pervaded by a lack of justice for white supremacist killings of African Americans, it pains me to realize how little has changed since the civil rights movement. Sure, anti-black violence by whites is no longer as easy to get away with as in Mississippi in 1964, but now that we have exported our disregard for nonwhite lives to other countries, we have to ask what value those changes have when we demonstrate disdain for justice and equality abroad.

Don’t stop at these questions, fellow Kansans. Never rest in your skepticism of the accepted truths of our nation’s history. You owe it to the world.

Chris White,

Lawrence