In her comment piece last Saturday, October 19th 2019, Crash mother’s sentence, Janice Turner speaks of “American exceptionalism, that citizens of lesser nations must bow to US interests even if they impede justice for a dead child.”
As teenagers in north Essex during the nineteen sixties my friends and I were well aware that US personnel from the local bases who got into trouble with girls or cars would be shipped back stateside very quickly. On one occasion I helped two young Americans to return a car to the road from which they had crashed. In the back there were two girls and a pile of empty beer cans. Despite a puncture they set off at speed lest, they told me, they encountered British cops and were sent home.
Much more recently I corresponded with Chris Tappin, the British businessman extradited to the States and learnt of his shameful treatment by our so-called allies.
I also remember the destruction of a British tank by an American aircraft during the Iraq war. The Americans apologised and assured the UK that American personnel in that theatre of war would be taught to recognise the flag of their oldest ally. No one thought to point out that they had failed to recognise the flag of their oldest enemy which was carried by the British forces who burnt down the White House in 1812.
Janice Turner writes of “the court of your peers” that the crash mother faces “which will judge you more harshly than any legal trial.” Like many Brits, no doubt, I have been on the receiving end of incredible generosity and kindness on the part of ordinary Americans. I hope that they will not find themselves judged harshly on account of their government’s treatment of a lesser nation.