DISILLUSIONING THE WORLD
Things have gotten bad when newspapers in China and Iran can broadside the US on human rights grounds. In Iran, where the official ideology considers America the "Great Satan," and China, where communist ideology traditionally holds that America is the ringleader of capitalist imperialists, prisoner abuse is a useful confirmation of the revolutionary narratives that legitimize the regime. Thus the People's Daily:

Then why did he Pentagon turn a blind eye to these savage acts? One reason is that atrocity like maltreatment of prisoners of war is seemingly a common practice in the history of American army. During the Vietnam War, US soldiers broke into a rural hospital where they killed 64 wounded people and raped and killed more than 70 nurses at a stretch; and the world-shocking My Lai Village massacre has become a symbol of indiscriminate killing by US troops during the Vietnam War.

The writer goes on to harangue the idea of American exceptionalism, and here he has a point:

The "America exception" is also an outward manifestation of the "America superiority" theory. The US neo-conservatives, cherishing a little short of fanatic missionary feeling, not only regard themselves as persons chosen by the God, who carry the mission of saving and leading the whole human race, but also are convinced that only the American social system and values are the best, which should therefore be vigorously promoted worldwide. In the eyes of Americans, civilizations and social systems different from those of America are "barbarous", or even "evil", if not "tyrannical", so they don't deserve humane treatment at all. In the words of former US President Reagan: Only the language (force) they understand can be used in having dealings with them.

The statement is unfair in some ways. Reagan's problem was neither with other "civilizations"-- we had amicable enough relations with non-Western democracies and even funded Afghan freedom fighters against the Soviets-- nor with "social systems"-- we got along just fine with socialist-leaning Scandinavia-- but with other political systems that were authoritarian and denied human rights, like communism; he believed they only understood the language of force, and he was quite right about that. As for "the mission of saving and leading the whole human race..." Well, yes, in a way. I mean, we saved Europe from the Nazis and led them through the Cold War. They couldn't have defended themselves against the Soviets without us. People all over the world are embracing market democracy, mostly of their own free will. The rights of man, democracy, freedom of speech, a whole range of inventions and technologies, a society without extreme poverty, now the Internet: time and again, America leads the way. We do have a "chosen people" complex, and we're not the only ones-- almost every nationality from the Jews to the Chinese to the Japanese to the Poles to the Russians to the English to the Germans and above all, gad!, the narcissistic and conceited French, has had some kind of "chosen people" complex during its history-- but ours is the most public, and it can hardly help but rub other people the wrong way.

This neocon offers the following olive-branch: yes, we Americans have a mission to try and save the whole human race as best we can, but so does every nation and every human being; we should all be on the lookout for an opportunity to do something good for others. We just happen to have been well-favored, and at this particular moment, we have a whole lot to give, whether it be the Internet, our language as a global lingua franca, liberty for Iraq, or the example of prosperous, free democratic capitalism that all may emulate who so desire. More and more, China too has much to give: cheap goods, a market for the products of their Asian neighbors, and perhaps they could even oblige us by trying to articulate the secret of their marvellous economic growth, so that poor countries can emulate that. Neoconservatism means liberty, equality and fraternity for every human being on God's great earth. In the struggle to get there, let each give according to his ability, and be given unto according to his need.