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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Friday, September 12, 2003
The War on Terror & The Musical Response (continued)
It hardly comes as a surprise, but the emergence of a partisan gap on a matter that supposedly transcends politics has come awfully quickly. All the more so, because one of the most popular analogies generated by the September 11 industry likened the new unity of purpose to that which prevailed after Pearl Harbor.
If you really wish to know what someone thinks about the war on terror, however, that person's opinions about Monica Lewinsky and the Florida recount offer a more reliable guide. Were the cause something other than self-preservation, these cleavages might not mean so much. But when a global war becomes the exclusive property of one political party--and is treated, increasingly, as a touch-me-not by the other party--the whole enterprise risks forfeiting its legitimacy.
Yet the existence of a partisan divide between the two Americas isn't nearly so important as the preferences that divide them.
When September 11 Americans look back at the attacks, they see an event that requires an overhaul of national priorities. When September 10 Americans look back at the attacks, they see an event whose significance is emotional, even spiritual, but most of all historical. What they do not see is the opening salvo of a years-long struggle, much less its implications for politics and policy.
Other things stick with you. The description the news applied to people in New York as "panic". I didn't see panic. I saw distraught people leaving - but in an orderly manner (even when running). In a helpful manner.
People with the pictures of their loved ones. Hoping they would be found, alive. I never had hope that anyone would be recovered from the site, alive. That was a curse, not a blessing. Things stick with you. I read a story later, about the rescue efforts. What sticks with me is the part about a rescue dog. The dog lives to find people alive.
Never finding anyone alive, the dog grew increasingly crestfallen. Depressed. Why does the dog stick with me?
In retrospect, I regret the Men of Harlech post from earlier today. Does it slight the brave fortitude of Rick Rescorla, who served his fellow countrymen one last time on that day? (Link via Winds). I meant it as a reminder of our dearest ally who stood by us throughout everything these past two years, and that song has entered my head often - but always as "Men of Harlech", as sung in the movie (which seemed to run on cable quite often that year). It's a song of resolve. But as the day wore on, I increasingly regretted the post. Blogging is like that - at least for me. We do not always know what is appropriate. We are human. That post could have been written better. It wasn't.
3,047 people died - were killed on that day. People from 83 countries died in New York. 3,251 children lost their parents.
My little sister still lives on Manhattan. She now works at a theater. I'm so grateful she's alive. Of course, in retrospect she wasn't in danger of dying that day - not really. But we did not know that at the time. At the time, we wondered and worried and cried and prayed. For so many others who did the same, they cannot say that their daughter, their son, their sister, their brother, their wife or husband, their dear friend, is still alive.
For a time after the attack, we feared that no place in America would be safe. Remember, if you can, all the predictions of a flurry of attacks, they would strike us over the next months, years, in random places so that none of us would feel secure. In retrospect, this does not seem to be the case. If they strike again, their are really only a few large, prominent cities that are likely targets. Washington DC. Chicago. Los Angeles. San Francisco. New York City.
If there is another attack, will it be worse? In its aftermath, will I be able to say my sister still lives on Manhattan?
People talk about Our President putting Americans at risk through his actions. They forget that in retrospect it was our inactions that put Americans at risk on that fateful day, two years ago.
Showing their support in their own unique way. At least this demonstrates the halflife of remembrance; we don't need to "get over it" till thirty years after the Left gets over some things.
Now we have a mental image to picture in our mind every time the Democrats prattle on about "our French friends" and "our French allies" and the need to involve them more.
There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But you'll never see the end of the road
While you're traveling with me
Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
We know they won't win
Now I'm towing my car, there's a hole in the roof
My possessions are causing me suspicion but there's no proof
In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page
Now I'm walking again to the beat of a drum
And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart
Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof
Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief
Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
Don't ever let them win
The two words that keep going through my head are grim resolve. I wish I could get the "grim" out of my mindset. Grimness is downright un-American. Resolve, on the other hand, is perfectly American.
"Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, who had been stabbed yesterday, has just died.
Among high ranking Euro politicians, when the subject was Israel, hers was one of the most hostile voices.
She had no pity for murdered Jews, only for murderous Palestinians.
Here's a link (about the myth of "Jeningrad"), among many, that proves it."
I know nothing of Ms. Lindh, except that, however repugnant her views, her murder is certainly not appropriate. I don't think that is what Nelson intends. I will have pity for her death, or sadness at any rate, even if she refused to extend it to others.
I can't help it, but it's a song that entered my mind often in the wake of the attacks, too. But, alas, it will never be "Men of Cornwall" to me. It's Men of Harlech. Several versions can be found here, and here is a midi of the tune, from my Geocities pages. This is the version sung in the film:
Men of Harlech stop your dreaming
Can't you see their spear points gleaming
See their warrior's pennants streaming
To this battle field
Men of Harlech stand ye steady
It cannot be ever said ye
For the battle were not ready
Stand and never yield
Form the hills rebounding
Let this war cry sounding
Summon all at Cambria's call
The mighty force surrounding
Men of Harlech onto glory
This shall ever be your story
Keep these fighting words before ye
Cambria (Welshmen never) will not yield
I'm not very good at "commemorations". In some ways, I think Christopher Hitchens is right that now is not a time for such things. But if the alternative to that is the kind of attitude displayed by the Democratic Candidates at tuesday's event in the Panderpalooza tour, then commemorate away, I say.
My sister was going to work that morning, two years ago. At the time, she worked in the downtown financial district. Her subway train passed right under the WTC at about the time the first plane hit. I know that because she emerged from the subway, a few blocks away, with ash and (tiny) fragments of debris raining down.
We didn't know that, though. I was driving - obliviously - to work, listening to the radio but they were playing a tape-delay (one hour delay) of the "Bob and Tom Show" and, for whatever reason, the local station didn't break in to report. My mother was at home, though, and had turned on one of the morning shows. So she knew what happened, but couldn't reach my sister's cell phone in spite of frantic calling. Of course, the cell phone system in NYC was clogged, but we didn't know that, either.
I got to work, blithely, and a few minutes later got a call from my mother; the attack had taken place about forty five minutes ago by that time (I have a long commute). No word from my sister. It's hard to remember but at the time no one was really sure the extent of things. We were grief-stricken regardless, but made worse by the fact that we couldn't contact my sister, who worked in downtown Manhattan.
About two hours later, my sister reached my mother by phone. She and some friends from work had taken the ferry across the river to Jersey. They were on the phone together, with my sister looking across the river at Manhattan, as the first tower came down.
Notice I used the word "attack". Starting almost immediately, the media-preferred description of the event was "tragedy". Sure, it was a tragedy - but is that the primary description that should be used to convey the events of 9/11?
It is for some - not an attack, but a tragedy. Not a war, but a crime and a warmonger (American) President.
A tragedy is an accident or an act of nature. Two people get lost at sea when a storm swamps their boat and they drown. That's a tragedy. December 7th, 1941, is not described as "the date that will live in tragedy as thousands of lives were lost" (passive voice is so useful in looping out culpability, eh?) - even if the events of that day and what followed were, in many ways, tragic. No, it was an attack, not a tragedy. Sept. 11th 2001 was an attack.
Just as in 1941, there was already a war on but most Americans - and I exempt not myself - were detached from it. That was something that happened "over there", even if, from time to time (more often than we might like), it affected Americans. In Israel or India. In Yemen. In Africa. In European countries. Now, I always, even then, thought that we should take stronger responses to such attacks. But I cannot and will not delude myself or my readers into thinking that I, me, felt this was a priority then, was in a wartime mindset. At Dawn on Sept. 11th, We Slept.
For some Americans, Sept. 11th changed our mindset. We know now that we are at war - whatever we might prefer. The idea that us "pro-war" people oppose peace is a fallacy. We - the vast majority of us - would prefer peace over war any day. However, we refuse to build a fantasy and delude ourselves on the matter.
For some Americans, we could be at peace tomorrow if only we stopped fighting. They put bumper stickers to that effect on their cars, festoon their office space with like emblems, and back candidates, Presidential and otherwise, who exude that sense, even where their words may differ. The attitude they convey is as unmistakable to their supporters as to their opponents (count me among the later). They not only prefer peace to war, but in their hearts if not their head, Sept. 11th is willed away and fantasies engaged in - the hopefully expressed meme that "violence never solves anything" (unless you're the terrorist, in which case their concerns should be accommodated), terrorism "cannot be beaten by force" (a favorite of the BBC & NPR set). If we close our eyes and wish real hard, the people who were killed - not "died" but were killed - and Tinkerbell will return to life (or, almost as good, we can forget and "get over it"), and we will have peace. Imagine - it's easy if you try. It isn't hard to do. I may say these people are dreamers, but they aren't the only ones.
Their dream is a nightmare. They want the pre-Sept. 11th world. Fine. Maybe I do, too, but hard, cold reality is not something I want to ignore so I can live in a mental dream world. For many of them, they believe Peace will come if we change Presidents - a President more like Clinton would be their preference. They remember the Clinton years fondly. There was no war then, back in the '90s. Clinton was multilateral and we were at peace and all was well with the world.
The fact is there was a war but we - not just Clinton, we Americans, including most Republicans - didn't recognize it. Didn't want to recognize it. The first WTC attack in '93 was not enough to rouse us to react. Remember that attack? People familiar with it, by the by, will also remember the strands connecting it to Saddam Hussein (the man those who Visualize World Peace say has no involvement with terrorism. Forget. Forget). This halcyon era was a dream palace for Americans. Some Americans and many other countries prefer that to reality - after all, who can blame them, when reality is hard, cold, and bloody? Reality is a rain of fire in Manhattan. Reality is a hole in the Pentagon. Reality is a scorch mark in Pennsylvania as the first American counterattack thwarted the Fourth Plane from striking its intended target.
Reality is that the same people who opposed our march to Baghdad already, as early as the campaign against the Taliban, were withdrawing their sympathies already. Reality is that not everyone who was allied (however tenuously in reality, France) with us in the previous war (the Cold War) will necessarily be on our side in this one. They may be neutrals. They may, for reasons of their own, seek to block us. Reality is that, just as in the Cold War where the Soviet Bloc used their influence in the United Nations against us when they could, others will do so now. That is part of reality. Reality includes the fact that no, getting together, consulting, and trying to form "consensus" does not always work when views differ so sharply that they cannot be papered over or negotiated away - just as no amount of "negotiating and diplomacy" would have brought the Soviet Union to support our positions in the UN during the height of the Cold War.
Reality is a hard and difficult spouse. Not as soft, seductive, and beguiling as the fantasy mistress, singing her siren song of peace and (international) community. I understand why people are seduced. Why they want to prefer that if we're just nice enough (stop being assertive "bullies" and be more accommodating), everyone in the world will like us and these problems will go away. They put the onus (I chose that over "blame") on us because in their worldview, it is something that we can affect. After all, we can change Presidents with an election, right? If we get the right President, enacting the right sort of diplomacy, then the clouds of war will part. The war will go away, quickly and bloodlessly- thus their furrowed brows over the fact that we're "still" taking casualties in war. If we had the right diplomacy and the right partners and the right policies, Death would go away. (See here and here, via Oxblog on the topic, also worth reading).
One heres it from time to time in the frequent reaction such people have to criticisms of their emphasis. The argument amounts to "we can control us"; "I'm an American so I emphasize America's role" and whatnot. If that were it, that would be one thing. However, their entire attitude is that if we "control us", the problem will (quickly) dissolve, like a dark, heavy fog dissolves in the light of the sun. But that attitude is misplaced; it is not that we are without flaws or mistakes, but the attitude is that if we simply correct them, the problem goes away. That treats us as the source of the problem - France would be more cooperative if we simply had better diplomacy and a better, less "unilateralist" attitude on our end. Terrorism would fade if we adjusted our policies in response to attacks, but won't if we respond aggressively. (see here and here).
Now, I simply cannot accept that. People aren't dissuaded from doing what gets them what they want. Rather, they go with what works. If terrorism gets Israel to withdraw, then terrorism obviously works. If terrorism gets us to change our policies, then terrorism obviously works. Rather than removing the incentive for terrorism, one just generates more by walking that path.
One of the key dividing lines in this war is between those who agree with the above as opposed to those who, for whatever reason, will want to quibble with it or who don't think that putting it so starkly is fair. Knowing how people will react to that is likely a predictor to how they will vote next year; perhaps not a perfect one (nothing in social science is a perfect predictor), but a good one. Remember, their bumper-stickers and buttons and office-pastings aren't "fight a smarter war"; they are "peace"-oriented, and none of the people who might be inclined to object to my "dividing line" likely spend much, if any, time and effort objecting to that when they see it in their friends. As James Cramer (a Democrat) wrote a year ago:
In years to come, there will be people who stayed pacifist or ignorant or oblivious to what has happened, and they will be looked upon in later history as cowards or dreamers or fools. And then there will be the people who saw Sept. 11 for what it was, a declaration of war against us, and acted accordingly. I want nothing more than to be in the latter camp, if only because yesterday was and always will be Sept. 11 until our enemies are vanquished.
I have opened comments for this post. Share what you'd like to, if you're so inclined.
Recently I contacted a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION which organizes marches.
After having introduced myself and explained to them the situation in Iran (after 4 phone calls and messages) I was told that they won't help the Iranian activists and their friends in organizing marches against the Islamic Republic as they're afraid the Iranian student movement might be run by IMPERIALIST!!!!!
They claimed to be "intelligent" and very well informed though essentially they had NO IDEA what on earth I was talking about. They were not only unaware of the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic, they had never even heard that an organized group of hoodlums, called the BADR Brigade, trained by the KGB and Palestinians, armed and bankrolled by the Islamic Republic's ruling theocrats, were infiltrating Iraq to run a muck in killing American soldiers and destroy the future of Iraq! When I explained that the people of Iran are acting on their own but that encouragement from the PEOPLE of the west was crucial in holding anti-Islamic Republic demonstrations etc. (that's all I had asked them for: help in organizing demonstrations) the woman basically said that they won't help because their cause was to eradicate Imperialism!
I explained that Iranian oil was being pilfered by member nations of the EU and other countries such as Japan, at which she replied: since we don't live in Europe or Japan, I cannot help! I guess imperialism is concentrated only in the U.S.!!!!! AND that Mullahs can't be "Imperialists!"
I've heard A.N.S.W.E.R. refer to itself as "International A.N.S.W.E.R." I guess they should take "International" out and just say "U.S. A.N.S.W.E.R." or better yet simply rename themselves appropriately ("Act Now to Stop America and Justify Repression Elsewhere" might work better for them).
I then explained that Hossein Khomeini (Khomeini's grandson) is now one of the biggest opponents of the Mullacracy in Iran...She told me that he was probably being bought by Americans!!! In other words, she was convinced that there could be no dissent among the Mullahs themselves!!!!!
I told her about my father and other political prisoners in Iran (not to mention the number of people stoned to death, hung, assassinated, raped...), she thought for a moment and said that my father is probably a dissident and that the Islamic Republic was possibly justified in putting him in prison!!!!! I don't know, but doesn't that seem oxymoronic coming from someone working at an "activist/protestor" organization?????
Such Heroes. Talk about support for styfling of dissent. But None Dare Call them America Haters.
The BBC had an interesting report on oil drilling and wilderness co-existing. In Alaska? No, in Africa. But of course the same facts would apply to any drilling in Alaska - but won't be so applied by the Good People.
An Opinion Journal piece on Iraq and the big picture, developed by, inovatively, talking to Iraqis who aren't the usual long-running (Ba'athist) contacts that reporters typically rely on in their "Iraqi on the Street" pieces. This is more along the lines of a scientific poll, and as with previous such polls, it's an interesting contrast to what we get in "opinion samples" of interviews with (Ba'athist) Iraqis on, say, BBC or NPR or CNN reports on the situation there.
FT's "comment and analysis" section is still blockaded/embargoed - it has been "subscriber only" since this letter I sent, and these posts related to the issue. They also have seemingly toned down (slightly) the pieces they do run - nothing quite so bad seems to have appeared since I called them out. In any case, it could be coincidence, but now I'm officially taking
A) Credit
B) Responsibility
C) Blame
D) All of the Above
for the embargoing of their opinion pieces from free access (for many/most) to almost universal "subscriber only" access. Who sez bloggers can't affect the editorial policies of Big Media?
Chris writes (via e-mail) that Michael Meacher's relationship with reality has been somewhat strained for some time:
You might b interested in a little amusing background on that well known analyst of geopolitics, Michael Meacher, which is unlikely to be well known in the US. On both these points I'm quoting from (a reasonably good) memory but the matters could be confirmed very quickly, particularly from correspondents in the UK who are a bit more prepared to do some research than I!
1. Meacher - son of the horny handed son of toil. Back in the 80s, when Meacher was Tony Benn's lieutenant in his attempt to take the Labour Party over the hills and far away, he (Meacher) put it about that he was a true child of the proletariat in that his father had been a farm labourer. Alan Watkins, at that time a columnist on the Observer, said that this wasn't so, in fact Meacher pere had been a chartered accountant. Meacher decided to sue Watkins for libel (for calling him a liar that is, not, I presume, for saying that his father was an accountant!), something that only a very brave or very rich man (but see below) should contemplate in front on the London courts. The truth came out in court; Meacher's old man had been a chartered accountant and also the owner of several properties - farms, small holdings and the like - but had unfortunately suffered a nervous breakdown. As therapy, he took to doing manual work on one or other of his properties - thus the 'farm labourer' status. The Jury found against Meacher and awarded him the bill for the entire costs of the case - a fat six figure sum.
2. Meacher - man of property. MM is a standard bearer for socialism in the Labour Party and a widely respected advocate for frugal living. This hasn't prevented him from following in his old man's footsteps and acquiring a substantial portfolio of real estate. There was a story in the newspapers over here a couple of years ago that our then Environment Minister owned around nine (I think it was) flats and houses in London and elsewhere and gained a healthy rental income. Given the price of property in this country, that is likely to make him worth several million quid in that department alone. So it's good to know that he will survive without his ministerial salary.
I hope that you will agree - it's always good to see a man like Michael Meacher, who tells it likes it is and lives in accordance with his principles!
Yep. That's true of so many of those Scions and Champions of the Working Class - Michael Moore comes to mind, for example. Or most of the New Left (like Tom Hayden), who were progeny of upper-middle class backgrounds and enjoy swanky lifestyles.
A lengthy and detailed essay by The Buggy Professor, with some reflections on recent NATO history and an analysis of the EU's possible, likely, future prospects. Check it out.
I disagree with some of the post. Since Bush proposed the latest UN Resolution on Iraq, the "fence mending" of Germany and France has been revealed as hollow and shallow. It is useful to compare the Prof's take with, say, Nelson Ascher's (among others). Still, by and large and for the most part there is much good in the post, and this part of the Prof's take certainly fits with what Ascher reports:
it would be foolish to expect the US to enjoy high status in public opinion as long as the power gap is so great, the economic performance of most of the EU is laggard, and worries about Europe's future --- the EU, the rapidly mounting percentage of radicalized and often violent Muslim populations (with terrorist cells uncovered daily in one country or another) --- persist into the future.
The New York Post on our allies in Iraq - our actual ones, not the opponents the Left insists as falsely characterizing as "our allies":
Yes, most of these countries have only sent small detachments.
But most are small countries with tiny armed forces that have never before sent troops to distant parts of the globe.
People often jeer at the small size of the contributions made by these countries; usually those doing the jeering have France and Germany as their Gold Standard. Next time some Ungreatful Ugly American sneers at what these countries are contributing, remind them that each and every one of these countries are giving more than France and Germany combined.
Many are seeing similarities between this war and the Cold War, but the lineups of allies are going to shake out somewhat differently, and deferring to Frances position in the UN now would be akin to deferring to the Soviet position then. Of course, the same people who want us to defer to the French position always found reason to "understand" and "accommodate" the "legitimate concerns" of the Soviet position then, too, and felt we were "too confrontational" and "not diplomatic enough" (Strobe Talbot, Sandy Berger, Mad Maddy Albright, phone your publicists). Well, as they say in France, plus la change. Here is more on that:
We rather doubt that a U.N. endorsement is going to yield enough troops or money to justify the division of responsibility that inevitably will be the price of such a deal. Neither the French nor the Germans are going to send divisions of their finest troops
But of course they are making the most demands in exchange for their non-support.
Meanwhile, the very people who were earlier bitching and moaning that Bush wasn't "asking Americans to sacrifice" and saying "he needs to tell us what this is going to cost" are now bitching and moaning that he has. See also here and here - with the usual grousing on tax cutting and the need to spend money on "other priorities". The only government spending Leftists and Liberals reliably question is what is spent on our defense - even in time of war. The fact that they hanker for more spending on domestic programs and repealing the tax cut shows that whatever expression of concern they have for our winning the war is hollow and insincere, as are their calls for "national sacrifice" - it doesn't count as "national sacrifice" if it includes tightening spending on "domestic priorities"; it's just code for "we hate tax cuts, now and forever - we're not even happy with defense spending in time of war, but we'll use it as a convenient excuse to attack tax cuts and promote social spending." But the implication is bogus anyhow: we're spending far more on education and social welfare programs than on fighting the war, the "other priorities" are still treated as the main priority. (More here).
How do you say "I told you so" without sounding like you're saying "I told you so"? That is the conundrum facing the Democratic presidential race's leading non-candidate, Wesley Clark.
Odd deference to his prognosticatory abilities, considering he batted about .005 in his CNN predictionfest on how the war would go. But being a Democrat means never having to admit a mistake or lose credibility; all ones flaws are slipped down the memory hole (would be interesting to focus on the realities of his Balkans Experience).
David Ignatius is a partisan for one side, as is Jed Babbin for the other side. But guess which one's take more closely resembles actual reality and is more candid rather than entirely driven by a motive to advance a partisan political cause?
Finally, via Instapundit, a piece on rebuilding Iraq by Max Boot. Check it out. Check 'em all out.
Of course, this article is on the money. People are saying we need to "negotiate" with France over the UN Resolution. Ok, what are they going to put on the table, hmmn?
Funding? Troops? Nyet, Nyet.
Well, here's a deal that I've heard from a semi-reliable source is being seriously considered: in exchange for France not vetoing the Resolution, they get to keep Johnny Depp and Robert Altman. I think if we have to we should be willing to throw in a few others to sweeten the pot. That's what negotiating is all about, after all.
Btw, I almost forgot my favorite Mort Kondracke quote from this weekend's Beltway Boys:
Since I never go to any Johnny Depp movies I don't have to start a boycott.
Same here, dude. Same here (though I did like What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and 21 Jump Street. But none of the recent ones have moved me to wanna see 'em).
In related news, another filmmaker whose works were esteemed in France and Germany has died.
Related to this, former British Labour Minister Michael Meacher says the President knew, but did nothing so that the U.S. would go to war:
President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war.
Now we know - WWII was a war for Oil and Amerikkkan Hegemony fought to destroy the progressive (National) Socialist cause.
A comment in that Winds post I linked to at the begining of this entry reminds me of last week's Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, who interviewed Robert Kagan on the Atlantic Rift and the differences between the EU and America. Unfortunately, they haven't posted the transcript yet, either that or it disappeared into e-space. I'll keep checkin and quote some of the key points when they do.
In the meantime, here's a good article on Anti-Americanism, such as that displayed by Meacher, by Fouad Ajami:
The Pew pollsters ignored Greece, where hatred of the United States is now a defining feature of political life. The United States offended Greece by rescuing Bosnians and Kosovars. Then, the same Greeks who hailed the Serbian conquest of Srebrenica in 1995 and the mass slaughter of the Muslims there were quick to summon up outrage over the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. In one Greek public opinion survey, Americans were ranked among Albanians, Gypsies, and Turks as the most despised peoples.
As a Byzantinist and something of a Hellenophile, that disapoints me. But I'm not surprised.
Lest they be trumped by their hated Greek rivals, the Turks now give voice to the same anti-Americanism. It is a peculiar sentiment among the Turks, given their pragmatism. They are not prone to the cluster of grievances that empower anti-Americanism in France or among the intelligentsia of the developing world. In the 1920s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk gave Turkey a dream of modernity and self-help by pointing his country westward, distancing it from the Arab-Muslim lands to its south and east. But the secular, modernist dream in Turkey has fractured, and oddly, anti-Americanism blows through the cracks from the Arab lands and from Brussels and Berlin.
Well, a tad more surprising to me is how this bubbled up.
The fury of the Turkish protests against the United States in the months prior to the war in Iraq exhibited a pathology all its own. It was, at times, nature imitating art: The protesters in the streets burned American flags in the apparent hope that Europeans (real Europeans, that is) would finally take Turkey and the Turks into the fold. The U.S. presence had been benign in Turkish lands, and Americans had been Turkey's staunchest advocates for coveted membership in the EU. But suddenly this relationship that served Turkey so well was no longer good enough.
Fouad Ajami reminds the readers that anti-Americanism of this sort is hardly new, and hardly the result of Bush (c.f. Meacher's hatred of FDR, who Bush is often unfavorably contrasted with):
But these sentiments have long prevailed in Jordan, Egypt, and France. During the 1990s, no one said good things about the United States in Egypt. It was then that the Islamist children of Egypt took to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a horrific conspiracy against the United States. And it was in the 1990s, during the fabled stock market run, when the prophets of globalization preached the triumph of the U.S. economic model over the protected versions of the market in places such as France, when anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life. Americans were barbarous, a threat to French cuisine and their beloved language. U.S. pension funds were acquiring their assets and Wall Street speculators were raiding their savings. The United States incarcerated far too many people and executed too many criminals. All these views thrived during a decade when Americans are now told they were loved and uncontested on foreign shores.
Much has been made of the sympathy that the French expressed for the United States immediately after the September 11 attacks, as embodied by the famous editorial of Le Monde's publisher Jean-Marie Colombani, "Nous Sommes Tous Américains" ("We are all Americans"). And much has been made of the speed with which the United States presumably squandered that sympathy in the months that followed. But even Colombani's column, written on so searing a day, was not the unalloyed message of sympathy suggested by the title. Even on that very day, Colombani wrote of the United States reaping the whirlwind of its "cynicism"; he recycled the hackneyed charge that Osama bin Laden had been created and nurtured by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Colombani quickly retracted what little sympathy he had expressed when, in December of 2001, he was back with an open letter to "our American friends" and soon thereafter with a short book, Tous Américains? le monde après le 11 septembre 2001 (All Americans? The World After September 11, 2001). By now the sympathy had drained, and the tone was one of belligerent judgment and disapproval.
Note the date of publication; that's hardly three months later. This paragraph, though, is particularly worth remembering every time the "we squandered their love" argument comes up:
To maintain France's sympathy, and that of Le Monde, the United States would have had to turn the other cheek to the murderers of al Qaeda, spare the Taliban, and engage the Muslim world in some high civilizational dialogue. But who needs high approval ratings in Marseille? Envy of U.S. power, and of the United States' universalism, is the ruling passion of French intellectual life. It is not "mostly Bush" that turned France against the United States. The former Socialist foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, was given to the same anti-Americanism that moves his successor, the bombastic and vain Dominique de Villepin. It was Védrine, it should be recalled, who in the late 1990s had dubbed the United States a "hyperpower." He had done so before the war on terrorism, before the war on Iraq. He had done it against the background of an international order more concerned with economics and markets than with military power. In contrast to his successor, Védrine at least had the honesty to acknowledge that there was nothing unusual about the way the United States wielded its power abroad, or about France's response to that primacy. France, too, he observed, might have been equally overbearing if it possessed the United States' weight and assets.
All too true. I would argue, France would be a worse actor on the global stage.
Here's a money quote for the likes of Meacher:
People say that Americans are arrogant, but it's not true. Americans enjoy life and they are proud of their lives, and they are boastful of their wonderful inventions that have made life so much easier and more convenient. It's very difficult to understand the machinery of hatred, because you wind up resorting to logic, but trying to understand this with logic is like measuring distance in kilograms….These are people who are envious. To them, life is an unbearable burden. Modernism is the only way out. But modernism is frightening. It means we have to compete. It means we can't explain everything away with conspiracy theories. Bernard Shaw said it best, you know. In the preface to 'St. Joan,' he said Joan of Arc was burned not for any reason except that she was talented. Talent gives rise to jealousy in the hearts of the untalented.
Too true.
There's lots more to the article (including this apt line: The neocons had been there for the rescue of the (Muslim) Bosnians and Kosovars, but the reactionaries in Muslim lands had not taken notice of that. - neither do the NeoCon-haters on the American Left, who ascribe everything they do to sinister motives, often related to Israel). Anyhow, check it out.
America's call to the United Nations will solve nothing, even if the UN were to respond positively. Why on earth would the American Administration think that France, Germany, Russia and the rest of the UN crowd - not to mention the immense Third World component of that organisation - would have any interest in assisting America now, after they have tried to do everything to thwart its policies at every turn in the Middle East?
Why call for help from the very forces that have wanted to undermine American power all along and whose understanding of the region would have accomplished nothing but the maintenance of Saddam Hussein in power?
Equally, why would anyone in the US State Department believe that France and Germany, who would not join the potentially winning venture of the war, would now want to join a potentially dodgy venture, namely nation-building in Iraq under American leadership?
Totally abandoning Iraq to the UN would be the better of two bad scenarios, for if the UN did come in, the more presence America retained in Iraq the worse off it would be. America would be blamed for everything that went wrong and get credit for nothing that went right. The US would have all the responsibility and none of the authority - rather like Britain after the end of Empire.
I don't know that "totally abandoning Iraq to the UN" would be better than anything, but - as in Afghanistan - it's certainly true that involving the UN will mean that we get the blame for their screw-ups and they get the credit for our successes. If given half a chance, the UN will do for Iraq what it did for Cambodia. The people of Iraq deserve better, just as the people of Cambodia deserved better but didn't get it.
A thought experiment to keep one up at night: keeping in mind that the UN sees itself as "neutral" (as between the fire brigade and the fire) in Iraq, what would they do if Saddam Hussein turned himself in to the UN? Put him on trial, or demand that he, "representing" his faction, be given "a role" in governing Iraq?
Well, a babe, at least. I've started reading Tammy Bruce's The Death of Right and Wrong, and here are two good quotes. This one is useful to remember any time the charges "you're stifling debate! A chilling effect on free speech! Creating a hostile environment for dissenting views!" are invoked:
Remember, too, that valuing freedom of expression does not mean remaining silent or withholding our opinion when it contradicts someone else's opinion. We have a duty to interact with those who are determined to change our culture, because our very liberty - the right to determine our future and make it worthy of our children - is at stake
(p.22).
This one is a good admonishment to remember when one is tempted into reaction, or for those who claim that any desire to revive some of the good virtues of the past means throwing out the baby with the bath water:
We have a duty to be more creative than longing for the past. I believe the best accomplishments of the gay, feminist, and black civil-rights movements in the second half of the 20th century can live alongside the moral clarity that has made America the Shining City on a Hill. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. We do not have to choose one or the other.
Our responsibility to ourselves and to future generations is to take the best of what we've become and bring it together.
So, it was a good speech. It hit all the important notes. With the UN Bush seems to be following the same strategy he did last year with UN Resolution 1441, invoking the idea that they have a responsibility to act. Getting the UN to take responsibility [Stop laughing. Please, stop it. - btw, readers, when I write that, I'm talking to myself. I wish I could stop laughing. "UN responsibility" is an oxymoron], shaming them into action. Well, I still don't want them to be given any responsibility since I know it will be abused.
I still don't know why he didn't make more of information such as is contained in this Washington Post article, and other information we have accumulated? The speech hit all the points, but could have touched on specifics like this. All in all, he was suitably grave and somber - but the speech was not exactly inspiring. He seemed to lack spirit - perhaps a function of being grave and somber, but at the WTC site two years ago he was both somber and spirited. It is easy to forget, I suppose, that war and criticism affects any human being, including a President.
I do not expect a President to do it all himself. But in that, here, I fault his speech writers. They gave him a speech that included all the points that he told them he wanted to emphasize - that is clear. They did that, but they did not rise above that. A speech writing staff has a purpose, and it is not simply to write something that one could write themselves, but rather to make it memorable and drive points home. Was their a memorable line or two in the speech, that capture the essence of what was conveyed and which will be repeated?
Two years ago the President did better, himself, extemporaneously: "I can hear you, and soon the rest of the world will hear from us". This White House is not as well served by its speech writers as the Clinton or Reagan White Houses were. It wasn't a bad speech by any means but it lacked that punch and it lacked one or two memorable lines that would serve to, when mentioned, remind people of the whole. For a speech, such lines aren't just "catch phrases" - they are mnemonic devices that enable people to recall the larger message.
Well, we've got a job and we're gonna do it, baby.
