Who Hates America The World Stage - Essay Example

Who Hates America The American political scene is dominated by two major camps. Regardless of the reason that they have joined their perspective group of peers, the groups regularly troll for media coverage in order to project the image of America which best suits their own agenda or believe system. On one side, the 'American is still the greatest country in the world' faces off with their opponents - the 'America is the home of political tyranny and capitalist imperialists' tribe. Each group comes to the table with a particular set of talking points. Each group seems to have an ax to grind, and regardless of the amount of angst burning between them, either group rarely hesitates to through a bit more gasoline on the fire. At times, it seems that the purpose is to create a larger fire, rather than promote honest communication and positive progress toward constructive goals. But such is the life of those who have power vs. those who want to accumulate power. Conflict seems to be the chosen path. Hating America has been a staple of the American cultural battle since the 1960's. Since a large number of students dissented over the Vietnam War, and took their voice to the streets, and newspaper headlines, political distress has become commonplace in the American culture. These dissenters have now matured, and become part of the ruling class, or establishment in their respective field. So it is only natural that their opinions come to the forefront of the nation's political debate. In America, a country once dominated by a somewhat cohesive news media culture, this dissenting viewpoint reigned supreme for decades. However, with the advent of the internet, this dominant stranglehold over dispensers of news and information has begun to crumble. The "main stream media" (Limbaugh, 2004) as the term has been coined is challenged regularly by the 'new media' (Hannity, 2005) icons such as conservative talk radio hosts, and a new generation of 'fair and balanced' (fox.com, 2006) news broadcasting. Within the American shorelines, this battle is one of conservative vs. liberal parties. One group believes that power is used best when it flows from the people, while the other believes that government should be the trough from which all rights, power, and finances are dispensed. One group believes that democracy, or a democratic republic can best guide its own destiny with tools, information, and opportunity. The other seems to desperately create reality following the communist principle, that 'if you repeat something long enough, often enough and loud enough, people will eventually believe it, and follow you. However, from a global viewpoint, the picture changes. The world has its own views of the American experiment on freedom and self governance. These views flow from their own worldview, and their own experiences within the political subsystems in their own countries. So when discussing "who hates America" the question of 'why' must also have added to it the question of 'what is the person's own paradigm and experience" as well as "What does the speaker have to gain be winning listeners to his or her point of view. Often this last question is more revealing than the person's own words. This phenomenon has gained momentum and stature during the last half decade since the terrorist bombings of Sept 11, 2001. Being the first act of war on American soil, this incident galvanized the American peoples to action. The terrorist network had been growing for some time during the 1990's. The bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon (cnn.com, 2003), the subterranean truck bomb attack on the World Trade Center buildings in 1993 (Wickens, 2000), the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 (Rodgers, and Frieden, 2000) . . . and the list goes on. After each of these terrorist attacks, the American political leaders rattled their sabers a bit, but generally subjugated their efforts to the opinion of the world stage. However, when a terrorist attack killed thousands of American civilians, and was carried out on American soil, this moved the Americans to full scale declaration of war. At this point, and under the current political leadership in Washington DC, the American will has not considered bending knee to the altar of world political opinion. It seems that this has further angered those who would like to direct American political policy from the safe distance within their own national boundaries. From American Shores Dissent is a popular sport in America. One can rise to the top of a pile and amass recognition by declaring to 'stand for the little guy' or by being the 'representative of the oppressed.' Perhaps this is left over from the original American Revolutionary spirit in which peasants with pitchforks won their freedom from the mighty British Empire. In any case, when the speaker can place his words in this framework he or she will inevitably gain attention on American soil. Even thought the American fighting man is oversees, risking his life, and temporarily giving up his right to 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' those who can find a pulpit have not hesitated to question American political policy. For example, Mackubin T Owens, professor of strategy at the Naval War College in Newport Rhode Island, didn't feel the need to restrain himself at all as he spoke about the war, and the anti American attitudes against it. "It is not an exaggeration to say that the terrorists who planned and executed the attacks of 11 September were merely expressing in more refined form the same anti-Americanism that has been a staple of the American university for three decades," he said (Cohen, 2002) As referenced earlier, the American campus has been successfully converted into a Petri dish suitable for fomenting political unrest by those who have not accepted that communism and heavy handed socialism have failed as a political system in every country which has tried to implement top-down political control over it's people. Professor Owens makes reference to Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at MIT (Chomsky, 2003) who's writings have been significantly anti American for decades. Owens goes so far as to compare Chomsky to Bin Laden, saying that ""The ravings of Osama Bin Laden and those of Noam Chomsky are interchangeable." (Cohen, 2002) The World Stage The World political stage is a much more complicated place. Political theorists who have not gotten close to the American system of self governance do not understand how it works. The political theories of Marx, Stalin and Lenin are still floating in the political undercurrents on the European continent. The peoples there are still trying to create an alchemic mixture of socialism and democracy that frees people to work and enjoy the fruit of their labor while keeping the control in the hands of a few. They believe the mixture will somehow create the utopian society first described in essays centuries ago. When these political currents come in contact with what is considered unbending Americanism, the conflict continues to produce anti American hatred. In addition, those around the world hold contempt for the American culture, as well as the American political system, and this hatred has not been the result of events surrounding 9-11 and the war on terrors. For most of US history, anti-Americanism, particularly cultural anti-Americanism has been a consistent characteristic among cultural conservatives. Underneath the standard accusations of uniformity was a fear of American democracy as well as a dislike for American morality, or lack thereof. The poet Heinrich Heine urged 19th-century Germans contemplating emigration not to think of living in "the colossal jail of freedom" where "the mob, the most disgusting tyrant of all" rules. (Markovits, 2005) What is surprising to discover in light of European history is that the epicenter of anti-American sentiment seems to flow out of the two countries which have the most to be in debt to America. France and Germany, the recipients of the US's aid during and after the 2 world wars, are those countries which most consistently demonstrate anti American fervor. This hatred was both political and cultural in nature. Maybe this explains the depth of the energy behind the animosity. According to Hollander, French anti-Americanism is a die-hard survivor, fueled by the feelings of French nationalism. For the first century of America's young life, intellectuals tended to view Americans as money-grubbing barbarians. After the Second World War many felt that occupation of the Old World by legions of gum-chewing, Coca Cola-drinking hillbillies posed the threat of cultural subjection, or at least dilution. This feeling was shared across much of mainland Europe. As Paul Hollander notes, "this cultural anti-Americanism . . . has remained the most pronounced among the manifestations of French anti-Americanism, persisting even at a time when its political roots had atrophied" (Hollander, 1992) In his most recent article, Astier identified the French feelings this way: "Opposition to 'cultural imperialism' as the most vicious form of oppression is one of the many themes shared by anti-liberals at both ends of the ideological spectrum. This general belief in a cultural role for the state explains in part why the phrase 'American culture' often sounds like an oxymoron to French ears." (Astier1993). However, these feelings are not limited to the northern half of the European continent. In a research study conducted by the Greeks, the following results show how deeply ingrained this ant-American spirit really is. According to a representative opinion poll, published in the Greek daily centre-left Eleftherotypia on 7 October, 80.1 per cent of Greeks disagreed with the war in Afghanistan, because they doubted that this was the most appropriate way to fight terrorism. 71.4 per cent did not believe that it was a 'just war' 80.6 per cent declared that the war was happening not to fight terrorism but to promote Western interests. Regarding the question as to who carried out the 9-11 attacks, 29.6 per cent believed that Bin Laden's organization was responsible. 28.2 per cent believed that American secret services were responsible, 7.7 per cent blamed the Israeli secret services. In the same poll 85.6 per cent believed that the appropriate way to fight terrorism was to minimize the injustices and poverty that foster terrorism. (Kotzias, 2002) This sentiment is cross national, and cross generational. In another study by Boston University media researchers surveyed 1,259 teenagers from 12 countries. From Bahrain to the Dominican Republic to South Korea, the responses of the teenagers (median age: 17) toward the United States were overwhelmingly negative. Saudi teens top the list of those with negative perceptions about Americans, Bahrain ranks second, South Korea third, and Mexico fourth. The negative characteristics that respondents associated most readily with Americans were that they are sexually immoral, dominating, warmongering, materialistic, and violent. (Pop Anti-Americanism, 2003) Whenever an individual, group, community or on a larger scale a country stands up and declares that it believes it has the right or correct way of going about something, there are those who will attack simply because they don't like being told what to do. To some extent, this is the corporate feeling which has arisen against the American culture. At its genesis, America has said that it believes that it has a divinely inspired style of government. The American's spirit has consistently stood for, or believed that it stood for justice, and the rights of the oppressed. So, when a nation such as America picks up their arms and rushes into war, they become an easy target for others to question their sincerity, motives and wisdom. This is shown in both of the above studies. These opinions will persist and even grow as long as US foreign policy is dominated by simplistic and questionable interpretations like 'good v. evil'. (Astier, 2003) The War on Terror During the past year, the U.S. push for war in Iraq sent Western Europeans' favorable opinion of the United States into free fall. (When Worldviews Collide, 2003) Quipping from the popular books by Dr. Gray, (1992) Robert Kagan says. "On major strategic and international questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus," His lengthy essay, "Power and Weakness," was published as part of a book, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (2003). Countries around the world are having an increasingly difficult time reconciling America's war on terror with their self proclaimed position as the guardians of justice and human rights across the globe. Many feel that through diplomacy, foreign aid, and peaceful negotiation that nations can be build and formed from the ground up, thus ensuring peaceful coexistence. Across Europe, these countries are managing to lay down their arms and build peaceful bridges to foster economic prosperity and trust. It has taken this small continent over 10 centuries to choose peace, but now that they have beaten their swords into plowshares, they feel that America should be able to do the same. The consequences of the war on terror are becoming more evident each day, and countries who did not experience the devastating attacks on 9-11 have long forgotten the images of falling buildings. They do not know the names of the civilians who were needlessly slaughtered, many of whom were never found in the rubble. No, for these nations, the ongoing cost of the war is beginning to outweigh any benefit that American's may gain. One of the most significant issues regarding the benefits of the war on terror is that the effort seems to be creating terrorists, and motivating those who were on the fence to stand up and declare their animosity toward the American war effort. For example, Walid Jumblatt is head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), a post he inherited from his father Kamal, who was awarded the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize in 1972. He displays a penchant for virulent leftist anti-Americanism." In the past two years alone, Jumblatt has publicly celebrated the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia and the death of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. (The New American, 2005) Still others cite that the war on terror is producing questionable results. In Afghanistan the Bush administration and Operation Enduring Freedom has produced a country in which most of the country has sunk back into chaos and anarchy, ruled by warlords who defy the new democratic government. The Taliban and the mujahedin of the radical Islamist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are working towards a violent comeback. The results are that US and allied troops are being drawn deeper into counter-insurgency warfare. The only flourishing business is the export of opium and heroin which, according to UN statistics, has increased twenty fold since the fall of the Taliban. (Kleveman, 2003) Perhaps what the continent of Europe fears most is that they are much more susceptible to growing Islamic militancy than the United States. As perceived allies of the US, as well as cultural representations of 'the immoral western cultural' should the European continent appear to ally themselves with the US, they too could be the target of the next 9-11. Terrorists have already bombed a significant train station in Spain in response to the pro-democratic and anti-terrorist government in that country. England is working connectively with the US intelligence in order to prevent terrorists' efforts on their soil before they occur. The anti-American sentiment over the war, while fueled by some of the motivations discussed above, is simply an effort of self preservation. However, what these countries do not understand, in regard to the militant Islamic terrorist network that is indeed growing world wide, is that these particular peoples do not care about creating a peaceful coexistence with neighboring countries. The terrorist network is concerned with power and the acclimation of power for their own purposes rather than creating a mutual beneficial and economic European union which extends to the Middle East, and beyond. History shows that Europe required centuries in order to come to the corporate conclusion that tribal warfare was self destructive to their well being. The countries involved finally decided for themselves that the continent could spend the resources which went toward war and recovering from war toward creating a peaceful and prosperous future. However, prior to this utopian revelation, no one could have negotiated with Hitler to get him to change his mind. Stalin was not interested in peaceful co-existence until his efforts of communist expansion became too costly to sustain. The peoples had to come tot heir own conclusion that peace is preferable over war, and unfortunately, until that conclusion was reached, suffering, warfare, bloodshed and injustice became a way of life for too many peoples. At this moment in time, the same is true regarding the militant Islamic terrorist network. This group of people believes that world ruler ship is a divine right, and they believe that they are divinely appointed to bring down those who oppose them. At this time, negotiating is not an option, any more than it could have been with Hitler. At this time, to do nothing is to invite continued aggression. To have a weak national defense, in which peace relies on negotiation and influential foreign policy, is to invite more terrorist activity, and to turn our backs to a imminent and hostile threat which would take no second thoughts about killing civilians in order to bring others in fear to their knees. History has played this song before. Before America had a personal reason to enter WWII, Hitler killed millions of the Jewish, handicapped, and gypsy population on his way to creating a master race. And if I remember correctly, the world judged America for standing by and allowing it to happen. Some countries just can't get it right. Works Cited Astier, H. (1993, June) France and Anti-Americanism Henri Astier; Contemporary Review, Vol. 262. Chomsky, N. (2006) Noam Chomsky. Retrieved May 22, 2006 from: http://www.chomsky.info/bios.htm Cohen, N. (2002, Jan 14) Why It Is Right to Be Anti-American: Conservatives Used to Be the Ones Who Hated the US; the Left Looked to It for Inspiration. All That Has Changed -- and Justifiably, Argues Nick Cohen New Statesman, Vol. 131. Gray, J (1992) Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, New York: Harper Collins Hannity, S. (2005) Hannity.com Retrieved May 22, 2006 from http://www.hannity.com Hollander, P. (1992) Anti-Americanism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.384-5. Kagan, R. (2003) Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the new world order. New York: Random House. Kleveman, L. (2003, Oct. 13. How America Makes Terrorists of Its Allies. The New Statesman, Vol. 132. Kotzias, K. (2002, November) September 11 and the War against Terrorism: The Greek Reaction Contemporary Review, Vol. 281. Limbaugh, R. (2004) Rush Limbaugh.com. Retrieved May 22, 2006 from http://www.rushlimbaugh.com Markovits, A. (2005) European Anti-americanism: ever present thought always denied. University of Michigan. Retrieved on May 23, 2006 from: http://www.umich.edu/iinet/euc/PDFs/2006%20Papers/MarkovitsPaper.pdf Iran responsible for 1983 Marine barracks bombing, judge rules. (2003, May 30) CNN.com. Retrieved on May 22, 2006 from: http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing/ No Author. Pop Anti-Americanism (2003, January-February) Foreign Policy No Author, Lebanon's "Liberator" (2005, April 4) The New American, Vol. 21 No Author. (2006) Fox news.com Retrieved May 22, 2006 from http://www.foxnews.com. Rodgers, W. Frieden, T. (2000, Oct 23) U.S. official sees similarities between USS Cole blast and embassy attacks. Cnn.com. Retrieved on: May 22, 2006 from http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/10/23/uss.cole.01/ When Worldviews Collide (2003, summer) The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 27. Wickens, R. (2000) WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING. NYcop.com. Retrieved on May 22, 2006 from: http://www.nycop.com/Stories/Dec_00/World_Trade_Center_Bombing/body_world_trade_center_bombing.html Read More