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Friday, April 27, 2007
America the not so beautiful
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON -- It is becoming harder and harder to stay friends with the United
States. Hands and hearts stretch out to the American people at this moment as
they reel under the truly frightful trauma of the berserk Korean immigrant
gunning down droves of students and teachers on a Virginian university campus.
It is the same, although on a smaller scale, as the wave of sympathy and
friendship offered to the American people that went round the world after the
horrors of 9/11. But what, people ask, does the world get in return? And the
question is put with particular strength and feeling in London, where the
British government has been second to none in standing by the Americans as they
pursue their "war on terror" (now tactfully renamed) and as they lash out round
the world trying to corner 9/11 perpetrators and strive -- sadly unsuccessfully
-- to make the Middle East region a safer, cleaner place in America's "apple
pie" democratic image.
The overwhelming impression is that the returns to America's allies have been
miserably small in exchange for this support of the wounded and angry giant. In
the British case a whole series of seemingly small incidents and events have
helped compound this feeling that the U.S., at least under its present
leadership, cares not a jot about its most loyal friends .
The list includes one-sided extradition laws, seemingly arbitrary arrest and
jailing of senior British businessmen who are unwise enough to touch down on
American territory, the vicious beating of a senior British professor for the
dreadful crime of jay-walking, and the cavalier application of American tax laws
to other people's jurisdictions round the world.
Particular dismay has been caused by American official refusal to cooperate
fully in British inquiries into tragic "friendly fire" deaths of British
soldiers in Iraq, and American "blame" for a helicopter crash on a British
pilot's "error," which British judges found to be false.
Higher up the scale come American one-sided moves to impose the sites for their
own forward-missile-shield requirements on nervous European countries, and
uneasy suspicions about "rendition" flights -- the practice of shipping
terrorist suspects and others to unscrupulous regimes to be questioned under
torture.
The tendency of American leaders generally to lecture others about democracy and
liberty as though they were the only practitioners of these virtues -- a trend
made the more irritating for the rest of the world by the fact that at home in
America neither democratic procedures nor the safeguarding of citizens'
liberties seem to be observed very well -- adds to the general souring of the
atmosphere.
Looming larger still come the really big concerns, which are hardest of all for
America's would-be allies to swallow, such as Guantanamo Bay, reports of
unspeakable brutalities by U.S personnel, unilateral decision-making over Iraq
-- with ever more disastrous consequences -- and a blind spot in relation to
Israel and the Palestine question that even Israelis themselves have begun to
criticize as unproductive and negative in the search for peace.
Add to all this America's blind federal rejection of climate concerns, despite
the New Orleans disaster, its flagrant disregard of World Trade Organization
rulings and its still outrageous agricultural protectionism (worse, even, than
that of the European Union), and the list of irritations seems endless.
It is all leading to some deeply worrisome consequences. An impression in
Britain is growing up of an America not as the friendly and generous cousin, the
ally who unselfishly gave all to save the world for liberty in World War II, but
as a snarling, would-be bully nation, with which it is unwise to tangle, which
it is unwise to visit and where it is unsafe to walk.
Somehow, perhaps unfairly, the hideous slaughter at Virginia Tech begins to be
seen as part of this syndrome -- the inevitable outcome in an arrogant society
that puts violent methods too high up the list and confuses freedom for its
citizens with the truly terrifying ease with which anyone can buy or carry a
gun.
At Westminster the mood is one of polite despair. It is widely expected that a
new Labour prime minister -- almost certain to be the able but dour Gordon Brown
-- will inch noticeably away from the rubber-stamp agreement with Washington on
all policies, both tactical and strategic, that seems to have been the hallmark
of the Blair tenure.
On the Conservative side, where it is daily more likely that the next government
will be formed, and where the most dedicated pro-American sentiments used to be
found, the formula of words has now become that relations between Britain and
the U.S. should be "solid but not slavish."
It is a mark of Washington paranoia that even this mild adjustment of stance has
been attacked by American commentators and Bush supporters, who seem to regard
anything less than unswerving compliance with the U.S. as betrayal.
Round the world, America's closest friends, such as Britain, Japan, Canada,
Australia and some of the Central European nations, are all struggling to
rebalance their relations with the U.S. It is as though a favorite uncle has
suddenly, through some kind of mental breakdown, had a character change and
turned unpleasant.
We all want the America we used to know -- the gentle, genial but ever
respectful and sensitive Uncle Sam -- to come back. But not only does that look
remote under the present Bush leadership, it continues to look quite unlikely
even under a new president, judging by most of the candidates -- and that is the
saddest and most worrying thing of all.
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