The imperialist myth of liberation and rehabilitation presents both violence and liberation as gifts for the liberated. It leaves indelible markers on the liberated of not only inferiority, subordination, and belatedness (to freedom and democracy), but also indebtedness.

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Once marked as the “liberated” and therefore “the indebted,” one can never enter into an evenly reciprocal relationship with the liberators. The notion of indebtedness thus disciplines those who are identified as the liberated. This asymmetry, moreover, has serious implications for the redressability of US military violence. The injured and violated bodies of the liberated do not require redress according to this discourse of indebtedness, for their liberation has already served as payment/reparation that supposedly precedes the US violence inflicted upon them. This explains why US military violence, colonial takeover, and occupation have hardly ever been articulated as crimes that demand redress.