Europe’s Anti-Americanism: It’s About Power, Not Policy

From the desk of Soeren Kern on Fri, 2007-12-21 14:29

How can America improve its image abroad? Answers to this question are being bandied by all of the presidential hopefuls. Hillary Clinton says she would “send a message heard across the world: The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.” John McCain promises to “immediately close Guantanamo Bay.” Ron Paul and Barack Obama both say they would withdraw American troops from Iraq.

Implicit is the notion that George W Bush has tarnished America’s reputation in the world, and that reversing some of his more contentious policies will make the United States popular again. If only it were that simple.

Although polls do indeed show that President Bush has brought anti-Americanism to the surface in many parts of the world, the roots of enmity toward America reach far deeper than one man and his policies. The problem of anti-Americanism will not go away just because Americans elect a new president.

Contrary to much of today’s conventional wisdom, anti-Americanism is not a recent phenomenon. In Europe, for example, anti-Americanism is as old as the United States itself. In fact, anti-Americanism is so established on the Old Continent that there are now as many different brands of anti-Americanism as there are European countries.

Take Spain, for example, where anti-Americanism goes back to the Spanish-American War, which in 1898 drove the final nail into the coffin of the Spanish empire and ended its colonial exploitation of Cuba. Many Spaniards also resent America’s support for General Francisco Franco (1892-1975), who in his day was popular with the Americans because of his strong anti-Communist credentials.

In Germany, anti-Americanism is an exercise in moral relativism. Germans desperately want their country to be perceived as a “normal” country, and its elites are using anti-Americanism as a political tool to absolve themselves and their parents of the crimes of World War II. They routinely equate the US invasion of Iraq with the Holocaust, for example, as a psychological ruse to make themselves feel better about their sordid past.

In France, anti-Americanism is an inferiority complex masquerading as a superiority complex. France is the birthplace of anti-Americanism (the first act of which has been traced to a French lawyer in the late 1700s), and bashing the United States is an inexpensive way to indulge France’s fantasies of past greatness and splendor.

As political realists like Thucydides (c 460-395 BC) might have predicted, anti-Americanism is also a visceral reaction against the current distribution of global power. America commands a level of economic, military and cultural influence that leaves many around the world envious, resentful and even angry and afraid. Indeed, most purveyors of anti-Americanism will continue to bash America until the United States is balanced or replaced (by those same anti-Americans, of course) as the dominant actor on the global stage.

In Europe, for example, where self-referential elites are pathologically obsessed with their perceived need to “counter-balance” the United States, anti-Americanism is now the dominant ideology of public life. In fact, it is no coincidence that the spectacular rise in anti-Americanism in Europe has come at precisely the same time that the European Union, which often struggles to speak with one voice, has been trying to make its political weight felt both at home and abroad.

In their quest to transform Europe into a superpower capable of challenging the United States, European elites are using anti-Americanism to forge a new pan-European identity. This artificial post-modern European “citizenship”, which demands allegiance to a faceless bureaucratic superstate based in Brussels instead of to the traditional nation-state, is being set up in opposition to the United States. To be “European” means (nothing more and nothing less than) to not be an American.

Because European anti-Americanism has much more to do with European identity politics than with genuine opposition to American foreign policy, European elites do not really want the United States to change. Without the intellectual crutch of anti-Americanism, the new “Europe” would lose its raison d'être.

Anti-Americanism also drives Europe’s fixation with its diplomatic and economic “soft power” alternative as the elixir for the world’s problems. Europeans despise America’s military “hard power” because it magnifies the preponderance of US power and influence on the world stage, thereby exposing the fiction behind Europe’s superpower pretensions.

Europeans know they will never achieve hard power parity with America, so they want to change the rules of the international game to make soft power the only acceptable superpower standard. Toward this end, European elites seek to de-legitimize one of the main pillars of American influence by making it prohibitively costly in the realm of international public opinion for the United States to use its military power in the future. By ensconcing a system of international law based around the United Nations, they hope to constrain American exercise of power. For Europeans, multilateralism is about neutering American hard power, not about solving international problems. It is, as the cliché goes, about Lilliputians tying down Gulliver.

Many American foreign policy mavens refuse to recognize this. In fact, they often over-idolize European soft power, largely because they share the European belief that a multilateral world order is the proper antidote to global anti-Americanism.

Case in point is a new report on “smart power” recently released by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The document proffers policy advice based on the fiction that the blame for anti-Americanism lies entirely with the United States. It calls on the next president to fix the problem of anti-Americanism by pursuing a neo-liberal norm-based internationalist foreign policy; it argues, predictably, that America can restore its standing in the world by working through the United Nations and by signing the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court.

But the report says not a word about the gratuitous anti-American bigotry of Europe’s “sophisticated” elites. Nor does it acknowledge that most European purveyors of anti-Americanism are far more opposed to what America is than to what America does. It is not primarily US foreign policy they seek to change: What Europeans (and many of their American converts) want is a wholesale re-creation of America in the post-modern European pacifist image.

To earn the approbation of Europe’s sanctimonious elites, the next American president would (for starters) have to relinquish all use of military force, surrender US sovereignty to the United Nations, adopt a socialist economic model, abolish the death penalty, accept an Iranian nuclear bomb, abandon US support for Israel, appease the Islamic world in a high-minded “Alliance of Civilizations”… and so on.

Anti-Americanism is (at least for the foreseeable future) a zero-sum game because the main purveyors of anti-Americanism are in denial about the dangers facing the world today. They believe the United States is the problem and that their vision for a post-modern socialist multicultural utopia is the solution. Never mind that most Europeans do not have enough faith in their own model to want to pass it on to the next generation.

This is the dilemma America faces: If it wants to be popular abroad, it will have to pay in terms of reduced security. And if it determines to protect the American way of life from global threats, then it will have to pay in terms of reduced popularity abroad.

But if America loses out against the existential threats posed by global terrorism and fundamentalist Islam, then the issue of America’s international image will be mute.

Better, therefore, if the next president focuses on keeping America strong and secure, rather than on pleasing those who will never like the United States, even if its foreign policy is more benign.

Better, also, for the next president to focus on wielding American power wisely, because doing so will earn the United States (grudging) respect, which in the game of unstable relationships that characterizes modern statecraft, is far more important than love.

Re: Amero

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Tue, 2007-12-25 12:10.

@ Taurus

 

Thanks for the 'update'...

 

Scrap the Euro,retain the Dollar... 

To Curtis Le May

Submitted by Taurus689 on Mon, 2007-12-24 17:53.

Thanks for your reply Curtis, but you haven't assuaged my concerns.

"Read up on the failed euro-constitution debacle. France and Holland actually voted down con-stitution a couple of summers ago in national referendums. So what did the euro elite do? They bypassed the people completely and by diktat put the constitution in place anyway. "

I will read up on that. But the Super Highway was agreed upon by Vicente Fox, Jorge Arbusto and the Canadian PM and Congress was not consulted about it.  There is even an inland harbor in St. Louis that will be controlled by the Mexicans.    As for the Euro and the chance of the US going down the same path, check this Website .

http://amerocurrency.com/

There is some speculation (hopefully untrue ) that the Amero is already being minted in Denver.

As for Americans, especially Euro-Americans, rising up, I have serious doubts about that given the years of guilting and browbeating of us and of our children.

 

To Curtis Le May

Submitted by Taurus689 on Mon, 2007-12-24 05:29.

"These euro "elite" know not what they do. It would take but a couple of discreet phone calls from the US Government to our true friends and allies all over the world, which we would simply call in a few favors from years past, and stop the EU dead in its tracks. Whether these "elite" are aware of how perilously close they are to this course of action being pursued I doubt-given their delusionary arrogance-but happen it will.
Americans cast their eyes outward after 9/11 and the actions we have seen an learned of and by Old Europe now ensures that the "multi-polar world" with euroland as some sort of an anti-American superpower simply will not be allowed to happen, full stop.
That's life, folks. Get used to it."

 

I respectfully disagree. We're doing the same dammed thing here in the USA. A North American Union is already in the works and I'm quite certain that it will be  a reality some time after the next President is annointed by those who are really in control of human events. The Superhighway is being constructed as we speak, the border is only a chimera at this point and the Dollar is virtually dead.

It's all part of the same game and all leading to the New World Order. Our elections are nothing more than a placebo just like those buttons on the traffic lights that we think makes the red light change to green more quickly.

Our national sovereignty is no more secure than that of the European countries.  They're just a little further ahead in the game plan.

 

Fat chance, Taurus!

Submitted by Curtis LeMay on Mon, 2007-12-24 17:08.

Taurus689

You are talking about NAFTA related stuff, which is nothing compared to the EU tyranny.

I bet hardly anyone even knows that roughly 75% to 80% of all new legislation in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, originates in Brussels, merely rubber stamped in London, Berlin, Paris and Rome by the "local" governments?

And that the President of the European Commission is appointed by the euro-elite, not voted in by the people?

Read up on the failed euro-constitution debacle. The PEOPLE of France and Holland actually voted down the wretched con-stitution a couple of summers ago in national referendums, and Holland by a large majority at that.

So what did the euro elite do? They bypassed the people completely and by diktat put the constitution in place anyway. The contempt the euro "elite" have for who they rule is breathtaking in its arrogance and the contempt for their people palpable.

The list is endless. The EU is a de facto tyranny. That is fact.

What's more, unless the people of France and Holland rise up, and rise up quickly, stopping dead in their tracks those "elite" who bypassed their will vis-a-vis the wretched EU con-stituion, we must conclude that the people' of Europe are fecking mindless, gutless, sheep.

Now, back to your displaced fear for us Americans. While eternal vigilance is a life long requirement of the American people, you might want to ask yourself whether we would ever get rid of the US Dollar, for example, like old Europe has with their currencies. Of course we would never do something like that, and if our government even tried we would march on D.C. and hang the bastards on the Mall.

Yet, old Europe got rid of the D-Mark, Franc and Lira. What does that tell you about them and what they think of their own countries, eh? Does the term "self-loathing" come to mind? It should. It plays a large part.

The euro "elite" are simply trying to do what Hitler and Stalin tried to do: unite Europe for their own purposes.

And like those two 20th century socialist despots, the current euro "elite" are using anti-Americanism as THE core theme for pushing ever more for a "United Europe" (see EU).

materialism

Submitted by Armor on Sun, 2007-12-23 23:29.

traveller: "For the new German materialism is everything and the old national feeling practically disappeared. They absorbed americanisms and the american life-style like sponges."

The fact that Germany/Europe have undergone a similar evolution to the USA makes us think that Europe has been Americanized. At the same time, the development of social welfare in the USA could suggest they have been Europeanized. I think a more likely explanation is that the same causes produce the same effects on both sides of the Atlantic.

I am now changing the subject to materialism and national identity :

Nowadays, loony socialism has fused with capitalist consumerism. We are told by our governments and media that we need to grow out of our narrow ethnic identities. We must indulge in multiracial sex and develop a consumer attitude to the world. That is supposed to be a materialist, hedonistic view of the world. So, at first glance, it would seem that materialism is eroding our national identities. In fact, it is absurd propaganda. In the real world, what is hurting our national identities isn't materialism, it is mass immigration. Socialist ideology used to be about improving our material comfort, now it is dedicated to destroying it, together with our national identities, our schools, intellectual life, concern for truth, civilized debate, and so on.

I think materialistic preoccupations can only encourage rational people to protect their national identities, their natural environment, and so on.

@ Armor

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2007-12-23 23:55.

Your reflections are certainly valid. I reacted only on the German issue but your general approach is correct.

Ouch # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sun, 2007-12-23 19:46.

I disagree with FRW and with Traveller concerning the comment regarding Germany.  I think that Mr Kern's statement is basically correct, in the sense that Germany' s 'enthousiasm' for European political integration in recent decades had a lot to do with a deep (and understandable) underlying desire among its 'elite' to be seen again as "a normal country".  German postwar shame has been palpable and long-lasting. 

How this ties in with Anti-americanism is not so clear.  I would say that attitude has always been there in German extreme-right circles because of the defeat in ww2.  But today, German anti-Americanism is clearly more deeply felt on the left and, moreover,  has gone 'mainsteam.  It is not unreasonable to postulate that mainstream German anti-Americanism can be partly seen as a German attempt to fit in more with the European mainstream.   It certainly is, as Mr Kern stated, "an exercise in moral relativism" (in the sense of refusing to make honest proper moral judgments  for reasons of 'convenience'). 

Instead of Mr Kern being "absurd", it is FRW who is being absurd, when he claims that the German government is more anti-German than any other government on this planet.  First, on this he is much too generous to other governments and, second, that is a very silly statement to make about the motivations of any nation's government (including the German one).  The reference to the "Center against expulsions" is truly a detail, and it is presented here in a cryptic way (which makes it unintelligible for most readers).  Whatever the German government's true position on this center is, one can be assured that it is precisely guided - rightly ot wrongly - by the motivation "to make Germany look good" in the eyes of foreigners.  

Instead of Mr Kern being

Submitted by FRW on Thu, 2007-12-27 18:36.

Instead of Mr Kern being "absurd", it is FRW who is being absurd, when he claims that the German government is more anti-German than any other government on this planet.

The center against expulsions was just one example, of course. You can simply read German newspapers and watch the news if you want tons of more examples every day. The anti-American left in Germany certainly doesn't want Germany to be a normal country. Why should they destroy their right to exist? And each "conservative" politician has done his part to dissolve Germany into the EU and weaken it. The only politicians who see Germany as a "normal country" and don't try to "abolish" it by political, economic and demographic means are in parties that are labeled as "extreme-right". It's sad that the West rather continues to beat a dead corpse than stick together to defend against real threats.

@ marcfrans

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2007-12-23 20:15.

I agree with your first paragraph, but that was not FRW's complaint.
The German anti-americanism is NOT a smoke screen for German guilt-feelings or for hiding their own guilt. The German anti-americanism is a construction by the left since the time of the DDR. My German business partners told me constantly that they estimated the Stasi-agents in West-Germany at 300.000 people, paid by the DDR. When the Stasi files became public my friends seemed to have been correct.
Germany doesn't even think about the WW2 anymore. For the new German materialism is everything and the old national feeling practically disappeared. They absorbed americanisms and the american life-style like sponges. The German mothers, many fathers were not there anymore, told their children about the hardships of the war and after the war and that made a lasting impression on the younger generations. I had 3 german partners of different ages and none wanted to speak about the war except in lost moments. The only thing you heard about were the horrors they had seen or they were told by their mothers.
The politicians are of course comedians like everywhere else.
The normal common German people who lived through the war were very confused by it and did not really understand the mechanics with which Germany made this horrendous mistake. In hindsight it's always easy. Who can keep from laughing today when you see Hitler's antics on films, but he mesmerized 35% of the German people, nobody understands that today, except through the fact that he gave them food and shelter when they were starving. The rest is history.

@traveller

Submitted by atheling on Sun, 2007-12-23 22:48.

"Germany doesn't even think about the WW2 anymore."

Rather cavalier remark...

Then tell me why the release of German films about WWII: Downfall, Das Boot, Sophie Scholl: The White Rose, etc... If you go to the IMDB site, you'll see plenty of Germans (and others) having lively discussions about WWII and Germany's role in it.

" see Hitler's antics on films, but he mesmerized 35% of the German people, nobody understands that today"

Of course people understand that... it's part and parcel of demogoguery.

@ atheling

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2007-12-23 23:15.

With IMDB you mean the movie site, yes?
I have no doubt that the left is strongly represented in this debate.
Anyway I am, again, going out from personal experience in the years 1965/1975 when I regularly visited Germany and lived there from 1970 to 1972. One of my partners was colonel of a tankregiment in Russia under Guderian, one of my best customers was one of the people who advised Hitler to go against Russia, otherwise Russia would become to strong. One of my other friends was in the Hamburg fire and still couldn't sleep correctly. This is of course no excuse for anything but the common German really wants to forget the war.
The new generation of today has perhaps a lot of questions because I am sure their parents didn't explain very much.
What I have seen anyhow is a close friendship between Russia and Germany notwithstanding everything. Merkel tries to go the other way because she definitely doesn't trust the Russians, coming from the DDR as she does.
Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl and Schroeder had all of them a closer and closer relationship with Russia.
The German business people were the real champions in the Soviet Union until its collapse and there was absolutely not one iota of misunderstanding or guilt feeling there.
You would expect something else but no.

The best analysis of what ails Old Europe that has been written

Submitted by Curtis LeMay on Sun, 2007-12-23 17:30.

Merry Christmas Brussels Journal,

Though born in the US, I have spent over four years living and working in New Europe since the early 90's and I can confirm the overwhelming accuracy of Soeren Kern's contentions. Soeren is spot fecking on.

To summarize, Anti - American = ProEU. 

The driving force of forced European integration is the inferiority complex the "elite", yuch-spit, in old Europe feel toward the United States.

These euro "elite" know not what they do. It would take but a couple of discreet phone calls from the US Government to our true friends and allies all over the world, which we would simply call in a few favors from years past, and stop the EU dead in its tracks. Whether these "elite" are aware of how perilously close they are to this course of action being pursued I doubt-given their delusionary arrogance-but happen it will.

Americans cast their eyes outward after 9/11 and the actions we have seen an learned of and by Old Europe now ensures that the "multi-polar world" with euroland as some sort of an anti-American superpower simply will not be allowed to happen, full stop.

That's life, folks. Get used to it.

Ouch

Submitted by FRW on Sun, 2007-12-23 16:00.

Reading this:

"In Germany, anti-Americanism is an exercise in moral relativism.
Germans desperately want their country to be perceived as a “normal”
country, and its elites are using anti-Americanism as a political tool
to absolve themselves and their parents of the crimes of World War II.
They routinely equate the US invasion of Iraq with the Holocaust, for
example, as a psychological ruse to make themselves feel better about
their sordid past."

almost hurts. The author has no idea, absolutely no idea. No government on this planet is more anti-German than the German government. The idea that they try to make Germany look good is as absurd as it gets. We're talking about people who are against a "Center against expulsions" because of the use of the words "German victims". If the Brussels Journal wants to be taken seriously it shouldn't publish articles like that. But maybe it's a satire, who knows.

 

 

@ FRW

Submitted by traveller on Sun, 2007-12-23 17:40.

You are right, although the article is basically correct, the comment about Germany is totally false.

@kappert

Submitted by Frank Lee on Sun, 2007-12-23 15:14.

Could you explain what you mean when you assert that political discussion in Europe is "fractured," whereas political discussion in America is more "mainstream"?  Is it possible that both sides consider the other's discussion more lockstep and unthinking because each is exposed to only a fraction of the other's political discourse?  That is to say, in America we are not necessarily privy to the less mainstream views of the outliers of the Lithuanian electorate.  We assume that the nagging anti-Americanism of the Guardian nicely sums up European political discourse.  Likewise, a Belgian might assume that the New York Times or CNN is reflective of American political discourse, to the exclusion of everything else.

 

I'm especially curious about your comment because one of the few generalities about American and Europeans that I think is irrefutable is that Europeans are much more respectful of elite opinion.  The European electorate says and thinks what the jouralists and politicians tell them to think.  And even when they don't -- as when they reject the EU constitition -- the elites just bulldoze through their objections.  It is puzzling, then, to hear you assert that European discussion is more fractured.  The average American believes he has a right to his own opinion, no matter how out-of-step and half-assed it may be.

 

That you resort to cliches about Coca-Cola and McDonald's suggests that your own comments are not carefully considered or individual to your own beliefs but are instead simply a regurgitation of what the elites have told you.  And as an aside:  when will Europeans accept that the popularity of tacky mass culture in Europe is not the result of an American consipiracy (or "abuse," as you put it) but, rather, reflects Europe's own bad taste and the loss of control that elites exert over the masses?  The fact that this upsets the elites in Europe to the point that they can't even admit they enjoy Hollywood junk -- it mysteriously appears in their theaters unbidden, probably imposed on them by George W. Bush -- and the fact that no one calls them on their hypocricy further suggest that political discussion in Europe is not as fractured as you assert.

@Frank Lee

Submitted by kappert on Sun, 2007-12-23 15:42.

It is possible that both sides consider the other's discussion more lockstep and unthinking because each is exposed to only a fraction of the other's political discourse. Right, this goes for 'avarage citizens', reading not the sophisticated Guardian, but The Sun, Bild-Zeitung, Holá and America Today, reflecting political mainstream, to the exclusion of everything else.
Europeans are much more respectful of elite opinion due to centuries of feudalism and monarchies. Even today, aristocrats have a great influence in public life (not only the Lords in UK, but as well in Holland, Scandinavia, Germany). The catholic southern countries are less obediente to elites. That elites bulldoze their way goes for Europe and the US (just think of G W Bush and the Lisbon Treaty). European discussions are more fractured, which has positive and negative aspects, though it is virtually impossible to get a European consense – the 27 EU-states have very different cultures and values which hardly can fit under the umbrella of Brussels' burocracy.
I wouldn't call obesity a 'cliché', unfortunately it is reality. Overconsumism (what a word!) is a drastic problem of the 21st century, coming right from the bottom and not from the elites, who may call it a cliché.
As to the 'bad taste' you contribute to Europeans: I like a continent in which the beer, the bread, the cheese and the cooking changes each and every 50km, although McDonald's density (yes, the cliché) is worrying me.

European resentment about U.S.

Submitted by kappert on Sun, 2007-12-23 14:38.

Probably the resentments about America is as well as European. Considering Coca-Cola or McDonald's abuse, Europeans are as well trapped in obesity as their American fellows. The high rate of murders with firearms and the death penalty are widely criticized by Europeans, yet European politicians support doubtful military interventions. There is an appreciation of the 'melting pot' USA, even though the peoples of Europe are mixed up for milleniums and several migration phases brought in more peoples. On the religious level, Americans and Europeans have the same protestant, calvinist and catholic background which enables them to industrial revolutions and material consum linked to egoism and arrogance, which does not benefit the globe. That's why there is a strong link over the Atlantic and Europeans and Americans speak the 'same language'. Differences may be detected in political organisation, as Europeans have a more social manner in organising society (which, however, is on the decline in the European Union since the nation-welfare-state is on the way to extinction). Discussion is more fractured in Europe, there are more viewpoints by the protagonists, America is more 'mainstream', also in publication (newspaper, radio, TV, movies). I do not go with Michael Moore, though I think 'Bowling for Columbine' should have a serious reflection. But any enfant terrible does not bring (necessary) changes.

Denial and Self- Loathing in Europe

Submitted by Zen Master on Sun, 2007-12-23 03:46.

I used to visit a Paris based blog, until it gave me a headache. They had a core center of ‘US bashers’ who had all of the characteristics others have mentioned. The most vicious were the French ‘conspiracy theory’ buffs who enjoyed reading about every American military death in Iraq or Afghanistan. They would gloat over each American death.

 

The French seem to resent the US for being the country that France wanted to be, but failed. Can anyone name one country the French ‘colonized’ that was a success? They colonized Mexico and we suffer today from the result of the failed French effort, endless corruption and crime. Mexico is a dysfunctional country run by drug cartels.

I don't care what they think of this country and now I plan any trips to Europe to aviod the worst of the US bashing countries.

@ kappert

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sun, 2007-12-23 00:10.

From a previous post you appear to strongly disapprove of  people who use evasion as a tactic.Therefore,before you put finger to keypad,in response to marcfrans' question,kindly bear in mind the words of James Thurber who wrote,"There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates,and the glare that obscures".

 

Thank you.

wrong indeed # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2007-12-22 23:15.

@ Kappert

 

As you can see, Armor can be very perceptive at times. 

Note what he writes about "a lot of anti-Americanism" being "directly imported" (in Europe) from Hollywood, certain American media, etc...Are you a fellow-traveller of Michael Moore and his ilk?

anti-americanism

Submitted by Armor on Sat, 2007-12-22 21:55.

SK: "France is the birthplace of anti-Americanism (the first act of which has been traced to a French lawyer in the late 1700s)"

I don't think anti-Americanism existed in france before WWII. In the 19th century, the French were wary of England. They didn't think about the United States.

SK: "In France, anti-Americanism is an inferiority complex masquerading as a superiority complex. (...) and bashing the United States is an inexpensive way to indulge France's fantasies of past greatness and splendor."

I agree. French bogus intellectuals like to pontificate in the French media and institutions, where no one will tell them they are ridiculous. But they become aware of their inadequacy when they are confronted with the American intellectual production, which is more down to earth.
In france, there has been a cult of "the State" at least since the 1789 revolution. The ruling clique talks about the grandeur of france, and likes to lord it over the populace. Every democratic right is denied to Brittany and Corsica as a matter of course. But when they are out of their own contry, the French statists realize they are ridiculous. It makes them all the more petty, back home. They would like to isolate the French population from American culture.

There are also other ideologies behind anti-americanism: like anti-capitalism, and the anti-white ideology. The french media are anti-American, but also anti-Russian. A lot of the anti-americanism is also directly imported from the USA. It is mainly American nuts who compare Bush to Hitler. It is American movies that depict American society as violently racist against the non-whites. Michael Moore is an American. Conspiracy theories about the FBI trying to poison the Indians, to oppress the Blacks, or to destroy the world trade center, mainly come from the USA.

Frank Lee: "That is something Mr. Kern neglected to mention: the general irrationality of anti-American ranting. The Americans are puritanical; the Americans are hedonistic consumers. The Americans are naively moralistic; the Americans are immoral. The Americans are withdrawn and provincial; the Americans are imperialist. The Americans should mind their own business; the Americans must come save us."

What you describe here can be found in American newspapers. Europeans are only guilty of relaying incoherent opinions expressed in the American media.

It is natural for American newspapers to discuss whether the White House is too isolationist or too interventionist for example. What doesn't make sense is to issue a moral condemnation of the USA as a whole because it is too isolationist, and the next day, a moral condemnation of the USA as a whole because it is too interventionist. But this is how the leftist media work. They like moral posturing and don't care about coherence. I am sorry that European newspapers are no better than American newspapers in this respect.

Self Loathing

Submitted by atheling on Sat, 2007-12-22 23:34.

The Left in America are full of self loathers who hate the West, "dead white males", Christianity, their parents, etc...

I think it comes from a sense of being privileged, without having to earn one's place in society; they feel guilt which makes them hate themselves and where they come from. In Europe, they have a similar situation, where they hate America because they've lived in a cushy berth under American protection.... It's all about resentment and stinginess. Only a mean spirited person despises the idea of gratitude and prefers to bite the hand that feeds.

wrong, indeed

Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2007-12-22 18:55.

@ Kappert

Korean, Philippino, and (Asian)-Indian Americans, as distinct ethnic groups, are richer and better off than all other ethnic groups of Americans (including 'whites' of whatever kind).  Most of them are first and second generation Americans, i.e. they are mostly immigrants who started with almost nothing.  Yet, their children - as a group - today are faring better than all other Americans (including native 'whites' or European Americans) in the American democracy and free market economy.   Could it be that they do not consider themselves 'victims' and get on with it? 

In a free society, with rule of law, any 'groups' that are doing badly, should look at their own sub-culture (i.e. behavior patterns) instead of blaming anybody else. 

Since we have already established (elsewhere) that you do not know the difference between 'right and wrong', how could anybody be surprised that you are an 'apologist' for bad behavior? You are simply an extreme moral-relativist, with a penchant for 'victimology' and for selective (and irrelevant) history quotation to bolster prejudices.

evasion

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2007-12-22 16:29.

Of course, the destiny of American Indian must bother the U.S. society. How is it possible to have a community with 85% unemployment, 97% below poverty line and a life expectancy of 44 years. The booze and casino comment is a shame.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Sat, 2007-12-22 17:11.

You don't seem to know very much about the present situation of the Indians.
To allow them an easy income the Indian reservations are allowed to run casinos on their reservations. This makes them for the moment billionnaires and the money comes in the hands of the tribal elders, functioning as shareholders of the casinos. They are BILLIONNAIRES. The booze refers to the very high consumption of booze in those casinos by the customers, because tax-free, together with tax-free cigarettes. There is a thriving smuggling business going on in tax-free booze and cigarettes from the reservations to the american public. Clearer now???

wrong

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2007-12-22 17:18.

It seems you got it wrong. Look at the Kayenta mines, look at Grand Canyon NP, make research on Sioux, Comanche, Apache tribes and you will find not one millionaire who calls himself a Native American!
More, are you suggesting the smugglers are Indians?

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Sat, 2007-12-22 18:39.

there are Indian smugglers involved, the sellers of the tax-free cigarettes and booze, and there are non-Indians involved, the buyers. Or did you think the transporters stole the goods from the Indians?
As far as the Indian millionaires is concerned, there are hundreds of them and nearly all the tribal elders. Take your blinders off, they are actually fighting in court to make sure their casinos can become bigger and bigger for reservations which have only a few hundred people, they have billion $ casinos(plural)

Oh Kappert #2

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Sat, 2007-12-22 15:52.

 Chronology:

 

Atlanticist: "would I be correct in assuming that,in your lexicon,..."colonizers" and "occupiers" would include...the US military?"

 

Kappert: "have a look in the dictionary..." "a list of names and countries should be much too long for this blog..."

 

Atlanticist: "have another crack at it".

 

Kappert: "America has to deal with its history of occupation and warcrimes.The USA have to commit to international law".

 

Atlanticist: Dictionary definition:

 

LIST

 

1 A series of names,words,or other items...

 

2 A considerable number

 

3 An inclination to one side...

 

Thanks for the clarification,Kappert.You have a distinct bias towards definition #3. No surprise there...

oh America

Submitted by kappert on Sat, 2007-12-22 15:01.

America has to deal with its history of occupation and warcrimes. The U.S.A. have to commit to international law.
"We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have suffered from cultural and physical genocide in the colonial apartheid system we have been forced to live under. We are in Washington DC to withdraw from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law."
For more information, please visit our new website at www.lakotafreedom.com.

@ kappert

Submitted by traveller on Sat, 2007-12-22 15:27.

Can they again start to kill each other??? Fun. Who is going to play in their casinos and supply the booze???

Global warming

Submitted by Frank Lee on Fri, 2007-12-21 21:18.

While I was reading some recent articles about global warming, it occured to me that, once the hysteria has been widely discredited, the Europeans, having blamed Bush and the Americans for their reluctance to jump on board Kyoto, will probably blame Gore and the Americans for creating the hysteria in the first place.  That is something Mr. Kern neglected to mention:  the general irrationality of anti-American ranting.  The Americans are puritanical; the Americans are hedonistic consumers.  The Americans are naively moralistic; the Americans are immoral.  The Americans are withdrawn and provincial; the Americans are imperialist.  The Americans should mind their own business; the Americans must come save us. 

CIA rendition flights

Submitted by Mystery Meat on Fri, 2007-12-21 21:10.

Does anyone remember this Telegraph (UK) article?

EU concealed deal with US to allow 'rendition' flights
By Justin Stares in Brussels and Philip Sherwell in Washington
Last Updated: 11:21pm GMT 10/12/2005

"The European Union secretly allowed the United States to use transit facilities on European soil to transport "criminals" in 2003, according to a previously unpublished document. The revelation contradicts repeated EU denials that it knew of "rendition" flights by the CIA."

"The EU agreed to give America access to facilities - presumably airports - in confidential talks in Athens during which the war on terror was discussed, the original minutes show. But all references to the agreement were deleted from the record before it was published."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2005%2F12%2F11%...

Ron Paul

Submitted by DiverCity on Fri, 2007-12-21 18:55.

Overall a decent article, but it's ridiculous for the author to contend that Ron Paul's advocacy of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq implies the "notion that George W Bush has tarnished America’s reputation in the world, and that reversing some of his more contentious policies will make the United States popular again."

Ron Paul may admit of this effect, but it's certainly not the cause of his policy ideas.  Rather, he advocates withdrawal based primarily on Americo-centric interests.  That is, what's good for the U.S.

Truly implicit in Kern's article, however, is the neocon fantasy that America needed to invade Iraq when he says:  "If it wants to be popular abroad, it will have to pay in terms of reduced security. And if it determines to protect the American way of life from global threats, then it will have to pay in terms of reduced popularity abroad."

Ron Paul would counter that invading Iraq has made America less secure.  Lest you think I'm an Islamophile, don't.  I'm for shipping what we've got back to their countries of origin and imposing an absolute bar to their future immigration to mine.  But I utterly detest and wholeheartedly reject the claim that it's my duty as an American to allow my tax dollars and my children's blood to be spent and spilled in the service of some Universalist fantasy of making democrats out of backward Muslims.

Excellent article

Submitted by marcfrans on Fri, 2007-12-21 18:35.

This is an excellent 'analysis' of European anti-Americanism, although it is inevitably somewhat speculative.  It should be compulsory reading for new recruits at the State Department, and for the staff of Congressmen (since most Congress men and women do not read anything worthwhile themselves).

I have only one disagreement.  While there is no doubt that "global terrorism and fundamentalist islam" can - and will - do tremendous damage in the near future.  It doubt that it poses an existential threat.   Such threat will undoubtedely come from state capitalism in the 'East' and 'North', given some more time.  But "international terrorism and fundamentalist islam", may well become an instrument of the real long-term threat.   

An honest view of much of the European resentment about U. S.

Submitted by Zen Master on Fri, 2007-12-21 15:34.

This is an impressive article that gives a view point rarely seen in print. Readers from America might also like to make a habit of reading the ‘EU Observer,’ the official EU news source. This Brussels based publication gives the actual thinking of the EU elite. If you read it several times, you will notice the anti- US biases that include obstructing the sale of US made products. They are always having articles against Boeing planes, Microsoft programs and genetically modified food. They wish America to buy from Europe, but they encourage trading problems buying US made products.

The EU Observer has had about fifty articles on the ‘CIA rendition flights.’ They obsess about how the CIA has removed a few Islamic terror suspects from the streets of Europe. What would they rather have, a few Islamic radicals removed or hundreds of innocent people murdered in bombings?