The United States of Amnesia: US foreign policy and the recurrence of innocence.

This article interrogates the ways in which the United States 'forgets' the consequences and effects of its foreign policy in the making of its identity. In particular, the article argues that such forgetting enables the United States government to frame its interventions in world affairs as innocent and morally driven. Literature on collective memory and the forgetting that enables the production of such memory informs one element of the argument. Three contemporary films from the amnesia genre are analysed to provide insights into the kind of American identity forged in the acts of remembering and forgetting, illustrating the argument that remembering and forgetting are complex, voluntary and at times mendacious processes. The article concludes with the observation that the processes of forgetting past action when framing the context of new interventions make the United States a dangerous force in global affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]