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November 30, 2003 Us - As Seen by Them












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From Bangladesh to a Lord of England sitting on its highest court, it seems people are a bit displeased with how e have gone about making the world a safer and a better place.
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Anti-Americanism: The view from Bangladesh.
 
Here's an interesting take on things.  An editor of an English-language newspaper in Bangladesh tries to explain to us what ticks off folks about America.  Now I don't much care for Dennis Miller, and undeed it seems he's ruffled a few feathers abroad (Elton John: "I love America, but if you want to know why the world hates America, I can give you two words: Dennis Miller." )  He's not liked in Bangladesh either, nor is one of the writers for Time Magazine, Charles Krauthammer.

I suppose what is here shows how small the world is now.  And this is one of the most concise explanations of anti-Americanism you will find.   Its not pretty.

It's not anti-Americanism, it's anti-Republicanism
Zafar Sobhan, Assistant Editor of The Daily Star
The Daily Star (Bangladesh) 21 November 2003
 
After a discussion of the politics of Dennis Miller and Charles Krauthammer, and a discussion of the Krauthammer piece in Time Magazine: The US Gets No Sympathy. Should It Care?, this fellow explains a bit.
 
Krauthammer: "The fact is that the world hates the US for its wealth, its success, its power. They hate the US into incoherence. The search for logic in anti-Americanism is fruitless.  It is in the air the world breathes.  Its roots are envy and self-loathing - by peoples who, yearning for modernity but having failed at it, find their one satisfaction in despising modernity's great exemplar."
 
[ The Krauthammer Time piece - November 17, 2003 - To Hell With Sympathy. The goodwill America earned on 9/11 was illusory. Get over it. - is no longer available on the net.  No link. ]
 
Well, Krauthammer pretty much dismisses out of hand the notion that anyone could conceivably have a legitimate grievance against the US or have a problem with the way it conducts its foreign policy.  The only possible reasons he can see for dislike of the US are the envy and self-loathing of all those losers in the world who are just sick with jealousy that they have failed where the US has succeeded.  Yes, the position of my conservative friends.  You know who you are.
 
Sobhan:
The America that most people dislike is the America that is arrogant and xenophobic and says to hell with the rest of the world.
 
It is the America that conducts its foreign policy in a tone that seems calculated to offend and has nothing but disdain for world opinion.
 
It is the America that dismisses all criticism of America as the product of envy and self-loathing.
 
In short, what most people dislike is not Americans so much as it is the attitude that is embodied by a certain kind of American. And this certain kind of American has found a home for the past half century in the Republican party.
 
Now, this is not to say that all Republicans are rabidly anti-foreigner. But the party does pander to the electorate's basest instincts and just as it is home to the bigots and racists and homophobes so it has also opened its arms to the arrogant and intolerant xenophobic America-firsters who despise anything non-American and feel that the US should do as it pleases and not be constrained by opinion beyond its borders.
 
It is this kind of American that most people around the world have a problem with.
 
Most people have no grievance against the US as a country per se or Americans as people in general.  Bill Clinton was hugely popular around the world because he embodied a face of the US that people found reassuring, and, not coincidentally, America's stature in the world was never higher than during his presidency.
 
Under Clinton people felt that the US saw itself as a part of the world community.  Under Clinton people felt that the US respected world opinion and that it could potentially use its massive power for the common good.
 
But the kind of American I am writing about wants nothing to do with what Krauthammer contemptuously dismisses as "the Clinton administration's hyperapologetic, good citizen internationalism."
 
And it is this attitude - not being American per se - that people around the world don't like.  It is the Republican mind-set that pours scorns on multilateralism and sensitivity to world opinion and takes comfort from the bullying and the bluster of the Bush administration.
 
It is important to make this distinction between anti-Americanism and anti-Republicanism. If the sole problem the US faced in the world today were the anti-Americanism of those who are filled with envy and self-loathing, as Krauthammer imagines, then he would be correct in his belief that there isn't much Americans can or should do about it.
 
But that's not the only problem.  The US is facing a huge problem of lack of support in the twin wars it is waging against al-Qaeda and in Iraq, and if it wants to win these wars then it needs as many people on its side as it can possibly muster.  If it takes the attitude that people who are opposed to it are opposed to it through blind hatred then it will never make the adjustments necessary to win people over.
 
To win hearts and minds, the US must understand that many of the people who oppose it are not anti-American but merely anti-Republican, and that it would not be difficult at all to enlist their help.  All that is necessary is little less hubris and a little more respect.
 
It must be nice to live in as simplistic a world as Krauthammer's.  It must be nice to be able to determine that if no one likes you then it is their fault not yours.  It must be nice to be so certain of your own rectitude and so contemptuous of others that you never have to question yourself or your own actions.
 
But the problem with this attitude is that it precludes the possibility of anything ever changing and is ultimately self-defeating. It isn't a particularly helpful or illuminating perspective to take if one is truly serious about addressing so-called anti-Americanism.
Really? I thought they hated us just because they hated us.
 
Let's see, from the left... this is a worry.
 
From the right... what a bunch of whining losers!
 
And this fellow really does underestimate the "comfort" provided by "bullying and the bluster" - aftre all, that's how we here keep from feeling bad about all that we do in the wolrd.





And guess what?  Not all the Brits agree with Tony.  Oh well.
 
"Here come da Judge!  Here come da Judge!"
 
Here's something from Johan Steyn.  Lord Steyn is a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, one of twelve judges who sits on Britain's highest court.  This is from the 27th F.A. Mann Lecture, delivered in London on Tuesday last - a lecture series with which I am, sadly, unfamiliar. 
 
This judge fellow seems to think the United States is doing a bad thing.
 
Guantánamo is the subject, specifically our detention of a few more than six hundred folks for more than a year and a half.  Here's the judges summary:
The regime applicable at Guantánamo was created by a succession of presidential orders.  It can be summarized quite briefly.  The prisoners at Guantánamo, as matters stand at present, will be tried by military tribunals.  The prisoners have no access to the writ of habeas corpus to determine whether their detention is even arguably justified.  The military will act as interrogators, prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, and when death sentences are imposed, as executioners. ... The number included children between the ages of 13 and 16 as well as the very elderly.  Virtually all the prisoners are foot soldiers of the Taliban.   By a blanket presidential decree, all the prisoners have been denied prisoner-of-war status.
And the problem is what?  We get what information we need from them, try them, and execute them.  That's what they clearly deserve. Heck, Dennis Miller says so - even Bill Maher has said something like that.  Well, what then is the problem?
The trials will be held in secret.  None of the basic guarantees for a fair trial need be observed.  The jurisdiction of U.S. courts is excluded.  The military control everything.  It is, however, in all respects subject to decisions of the president as commander in chief, even in respect of guilt and innocence in individual cases as well as appropriate sentences.  The president has made public in advance his personal view of the prisoners as a group:  He has described them all as "killers."
George Bush says they are killers.  Why not trust the man?
 
This judge does not:
As a lawyer brought up to admire the ideals of American democracy and justice, I would have to say that I regard this as a monstrous failure of justice.
 
The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay complies with minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials.  The answer can be given quite shortly: It is a resounding No.
 
The term kangaroo court springs to mind. It conveys the idea of a preordained, arbitrary rush to judgment by an irregular tribunal which makes a mockery of justice.  Trials of the type contemplated by the United States government would be a stain on United States justice.  The only thing that could be worse is simply to leave the prisoners in their black hole indefinitely.
 
Looking at the hard realities of the situation, one wonders what effect it may have on the treatment of United States soldiers captured in future armed conflicts.  It would have been prudent, for the sake of American soldiers, to respect humanitarian law.
Clearly the judge does not know America today.  Angry - and ready to torture and then kill, without any of this "due process" crap.  Due process, in the current post 9-11 world, is for wimps.  As is "diplomacy."
 
And the courts are a joke.  It's obvious who the bad guys are - like Michael and Kobe and Scott.  Trails and evidence are something liberals insist on, and we sometimes humor them.
 
For those of us who think differently, well, what we think about what is right has been labeled as treason - not just by Ann Coulter.  Check out the first media advertisements the Bush team is now broadcasting nationwide.
 
The judge also worries, "what must authoritarian regimes, or countries with dubious human rights records, make of the example set by the most powerful of all democracies?"
 
And "the type of justice meted out at Guantánamo Bay is likely to make martyrs of the prisoners in the moderate Muslim world with whom the West must work to ensure world peace and stability."
 
Why worry?  Cannot sheer military strength and threats of force stop these last two thoughts from occurring to other nations or guerrilla / terrorist movements?  Of course.
 
Well, I am skeptical.  But I wasn't elected president - so what do I know?
 
Lord Steyn here reviews how this all came about at Guantánamo - who passed what and when to make this our way doing business.  And he offers alternatives for how to handle this matter from this point forward.
 
All bullshit.  The government we have elected to make such decisions in our names has decided.  Let the world call it a kangaroo court and all that.  What are they going to do about it?
 
A monstrous failure of justice
Johan Steyn
International Herald Tribune - Friday, November 28, 2003