Each week now brings its share of chilling images from the United States. In Minneapolis, a 37-year-old man, a well-liked nurse in his community, was shot and killed by federal immigration agents on suspicion of being an armed threat — even though videos suggest he was only holding a phone and trying to help passersby. This is the third shooting involving ICE agents in three weeks, following the death of Renee Good and other disturbing incidents.
Each time, Washington plays the same refrain: it’s the victim’s fault, the agent was only defending his skin, move on, there’s nothing to see. “Alternative facts” despite the videos, despite the witnesses, despite common sense. This is not bad faith: it is a political strategy that sacrifices reality to preserve the narrative.
No moral authority
Is it surprising if, under these conditions, a strong anti-American feeling is taking hold even here, among Western civil societies? When a country that claims to be a champion of human rights tolerates police militarization, violence against civilians and the manipulation of facts, it destroys its moral credibility. When federal agents take away a 5-year-old boy with his school bag, what is left for America?
This radicalization is not the work of “foreign terrorists” or hostile societies: it is born from policies that trample on the values they claim to defend. By seeing America kill its own children before the eyes of the world and denying the evidence, we should not be surprised if people turn against this model.
Fall of the empire
What is at stake today in the United States goes beyond the question of migration or police. It is a moral bankruptcy. When a State justifies the unjustifiable, systematically protects its armed agents and criminalizes its victims, it no longer exports values, but fear. America does not lose its image because of its enemies: it buries it itself, with bullets, lies and cynicism. And when an empire stops believing in the truth, it no longer reaps admiration – only rejection.
