Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 10, September 29, 2003

Subscribe

Change Address

Unsubscribe

Comment

The comments on the right were taken from a single day's edition of Foreign Media Reaction, a publication of the Office of Research of the U. S. State Department.

This must be one of the most wonderful things available from our government. Several times a week they publish a lengthy review of editorial opinion from around the world, quoting excerpts from papers all over the political spectrum. They provide helpful orientation to the nature of the paper (the little phrases about "right-of-center", "populist", etc. in the excerpts opposite.

The reporting is quite matter-of-fact and covers papers of almost all major political points of view. As a result, they publish an amazing amount of material attacking the views of the U.S. Administration. I can only assume that obscurity is the salvation of this project, and that if it ever came to the attention of the zealots in the White House it would be shut down.

This represents an older and dying view of what constituted American strength and power. It used to be said that it was a mark of our democracy that criticism of our government's policies could be heard in our media, indeed, on the media that our government actually controlled. I grew up listening to the Voice of America's broadcasts to the English-speaking world and remember the calm and evenhanded way that the news was reported and how politicians from the opposition were interviewed along with government spokespersons. In the late 1960's, occasionally, some fairly radical critic of the U.S. and the racism in its society even was granted a hearing and their views broadcast to the world.

The theory was that exposing that debate to the world would win adherents to America as a democracy. To be sure, as people from totalitarian nations would hear that debate and disagreement, they might first be appalled at the weakness of a government that allowed such things to go on, but eventually most would come to admire the strength of a system that allowed criticism to flourish. They would come to see our system as superior and compare their country's lack of freedom unfavorably to what we had in America. Letting people see democracy was our best weapon.

Indeed, that story of conversion was an oft-told and archetypal narrative, as formulaic as any ancient mythological text.

There was a domestic variant on this story. Years ago, I remember that it was common to hear things defending the restraints put on a democracy as best in the long run. "It might seem unfair that criminals can lie and cheat and read the papers to find out what the police are doing. It might handicap our law enforcement officers that they must collect evidence and wait for warrants and approval and not shoot until fired upon. It might seem to give the crooks more rights than the citizens that their guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt and that just one juror can stop a guilty verdict. All that may be, but in the long run such restraints are a strength of our nation because they protect citizens against unfair persecution, cause citizens to love our nation more strongly, and to keep our liberties, we gladly accept that sometimes, a guilty person might go free."

One can only imagine the laughter from all sides that would greet such a position now. The right wing, of course, thinks it better to arrest a few hundred innocents than take the risk that one guilty go free. The left also as bought into "guilty until proven innocent" when it comes to accusations of sexual abuse or racism.

And it has been many years since I have heard anyone argue that democracy, however messy and inefficient and unable to quickly suppress its enemies, is worth the price.

I have little idea how all this went wrong. Even years ago, a majority of Americans, when offered practical illustrations of civil liberty situations and asked what they thought should be done, failed to pick the democratic answer. Vast majorities did not believe that a Communist should be allowed to make a public speech or that a defendant should not be tried twice for the same crime if the government found new evidence. But even then, the Constitution was a document revered in theory, at least.

A year ago, I would have said that it was all too late and the Bush administration's systematic attempt to change America into a feudal society run by wealthy corporate lords was unstoppable. Now, there are holes in the castle wall and more than just fringe elements are pointing out that the emperor has stolen his clothes from the peasants.

I don't think, however, that much in the way of democratic theory or commitment to liberty has yet come to animate the opponents of Bush. All of America needs to go back to ninth grade and take that civics class all over again.

In the meantime, read the Foreign Media Reaction website. But don't tell any Bush officials about it.

Guy Sorman judged in right-of-center Le Figaro (French): “From Sept. 11 came the first American empire.… While the American empire does not necessarily have the recipe for happiness, no one anywhere will deny its ability for effectiveness. In time, the proof will lie with either the failure or the universality of the principles adopted by this empire: democracy, individualism and consumption. Yet there is no counter-model or a European alternative. There is only protest against the American empire and the choice between being Americanized or not.”

Center-right Nordkurier of Neubrandenburg noted (Germany): "In the fight against international terrorism, the democracies in this world have fixated their attention on individuals. Bin Laden in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Hamas leaders in the Middle East. Dead or alive, this is the slogan, as if the hunt for a murderer in Texas could be the pattern for such a hunt. Those who simply believe in such patterns will fail. The expansion of the death penalty, which President Bush is now demanding, does not really deter. And the same is true for the liquidation of leaders of terror groups by Israel. To resolve the evil by using force will lead into a dead-end street. It will not help defeat terrorism."

Right-of-center Luebecker Nachrichten argued (Germany): "Two years ago, global politics faced a sudden turn, but since then a great chance has been wasted. Since then, almost everything has gone wrong. The global anti-terror alliance is no longer worth the paper on which it was written. The Islamic world is more anti-American than ever before, the Middle East further away from a cease-fire than any time before. Western values are rejected, liberal and western-oriented Muslims are no longer heard in an increasingly radicalized surrounding. Instead of an anti-terror package, the anti-U.S. alliance of Arab nationalists and religious fundamentalists is getting stronger. The war against Iraq made possible what was unthinkable before, but nevertheless, had to be used as a reason to go to war. Al-Qaida is no longer only an organization, but it has almost turned into a Weltanschauung. We will continue to think for a long time of 9/11."

Yasmin A.-Brown, center-right weekly O Independente columnist, had this to say in an op-ed in respected center-left daily Diário de Notícias (Portugal): “The USA is reinforcing the worst aspects of its policy and culture and removing everything that made and makes that country admired by millions.... In that sense, Bin Laden won. He created global chaos and much hatred; he distorted the minds of Muslims and destabilized them; he permitted the USA to behave in yet a more monstrous manner.”

Dario Valcarcel judged in conservative ABC (Spain) "Bush has never felt respect for the other side of the table.... Thus, Bush has gained the profile of an untrustworthy, secretive, conceited, clumsy, changeable man.... His last move, the proposal to come back to the UN Security Council...will make it difficult for anyone to trust him again...."

Pro-government Al Ahram’s senior columnist Salah Montasser wrote (Egypt): “For the first time in the history of the U.S., the country that receives its visitors at the Statue of Liberty, an interior ministry is formed. This country today watches citizens, especially non-Americans, enters their houses secretly, and summons them for investigation without trial. Despite all those arrested in Afghanistan (now) in Guantanamo, not a single accused has been brought to trial. The Afghani regime changed in the first year. The Iraqi regime changed in the second. What will happen in the third?”

Jeddah’s English-language pro-government Arab News observed (Saudi Arabia): "As long as America supports brutal Zionist repression with one hand, it will be pumping air into the lungs of terrorism even while with the other Washington is trying to strangle it."

The government-owned New Vision (Uganda) argued : "So who has benefited from The War Against Terrorism? George Bush is the first beneficiary. Having come to power under dubious circumstances, he is sponging off the dead of 9/11 and adding more macabre value by the number of Afghans and Iraqis that his occupying army can kill. At a personal level ordinary Americans are no less clearer why their country is so much loathed by the rest of the world and are more frightened than ever. Having been brought up on a diet of American invincibility, 9/11 has tragically brought them back to earth. But instead of asking why does the world hate us, they should ask themselves--do we love the rest of the world?"

Juan Carlos Ansin's op-ed in independent La Prensa judged (9/11): “The ruling strategists of the American Project who have taken over the White House in the name of a warlike God and a terrorism that could not be prevented or combated...have destroyed the United Nations' power, humiliated the oldest European countries, fooled the people of the world with their imprecision, exaggerations and lies in order to invade Iraq and defeat an assured despot--although one no less totalitarian, dangerous and terrorist than North Korea, Libya or Liberia. Today terrorism is much more extended and fierce than before the preventive invasion.… There is only one weak voice, that of candidate Howard Dean from Vermont, that has risen up in order to prevent the consecration of the new regime that under the Patriot Act keeps the most powerful country of the world hostage.”