I recently made the following statement in a post: “Actually, the anti-Americanism around the globe fueled by the anti-Bush liberals in the US and abroad is likely the culprit for the situation in Iran.” This statement was criticized. My initial response was admittedly not carefully thought through which led to a series of back and forth posts. After careful inspection of the criticism, it seems to boil down to claims of not writing enough on the subject. This post is designed to address the topic of global anti-Americanism. My apologies in advance for the length of this post. It both answers items very fully where I have been questioned and also shows the ridiculous nature of an accusation that leaving out discussion of a, b and c calls a smaller post’s credibility into question.
When you look at the rest of the world you see different categories. You see totalitarian governments like China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria and many others. Russia is a recovering totalitarian government that seems to be in constant danger of falling off the wagon. Then there are the heavily socialist countries such as Western Europe, Canada and many South American countries. There are the impoverished countries such as many African countries and some that overlap with the socialist and totalitarian countries. Then there are the countries ranging from mildly socialist to capitalist. Included among these would be Australia and Eastern Europe.
In the totalitarian and heavily socialist countries, the government often has significant control over the media.
In these countries I would be shocked if there were not a significant anti-American mindset among the governments, the people and the media.
The socialist elite can be among the most arrogant of people.
There is no such thing as ideological diversity in that group.
So there should be no surprise if among these groups there is a propensity toward begrudging
America to outright hating us.
The only way to appeal to them is to be more like them.
This is why
Clinton enjoyed immense popularity among this group.
By combining a mixture of appeasement, heavy socialist leanings, arrogance, position shifting
and shamelessly sucking up to them; they reciprocated with adulation.
I am sure this group was almost drooling when Hillary was pushing for socialized health care.
That was the one time they had a chance at bringing our powerhouse economy down to their level.
As noted the impoverished countries are usually in the totalitarian or heavily socialistic categories. If so, the previous comments apply. If not, I can hardly imagine a feeling of goodwill when they view the stark difference between their lives and ours. This is in spite of the US being the most generous country in the world distributing billions in money, assistance and humanitarian aid around the globe.
Along comes Bush after Clinton. Regardless of whether you agree with Bush, or if Bush is right or wrong; Bush is different. Bush sticks by his decisions, has a moral compass (makes the elites want to retch), not an appeasement bone in his body, very capitalist and makes it clear he is going to do what he believes is right regardless of public opinion (here or abroad). Due to their hatred of his positions and actions (while I have made clear I agree with his decisions, for the sake of this discussion right or wrong does not matter) the socialist elites globally have declared war on Bush especially in their press and against the US for electing and re-electing him. They have also declared war on the US as a whole in order to attempt to cower us into turning on Bush so they will be our friends again.
Putting rightness and wrongness aside, the outcome was predictable due to the differences between them and Bush (and ultimately us). It is the stark differences between two strong points of view that have brought the dislike toward the US and its policies. To prove this point, as strongly as the French elites feel against the US, the US feels just as strongly against the French (freedom fries, boycott French wine, etc.). The French became anti-American while the US became anti-French. If claims are to be made that one country being anti-country automatically means that country must be wrong is shown to be false by the fact that two countries of opposing views assumed anti-views of the other country. There have been historical cases where BOTH sides are wrong. The bottom line is that differences of opinion on US policy caused anti-Americanism. Since we see that an “anti” stance can be assumed even when a country is in the right (since they were clearly opposite views either the US was correct or France was correct), the assumption cannot be made that since there is a high level of anti-Americanism around the globe that the US is presumed wrong.
Digging in deeper, I would expect that if a conflict arose between a totalitarian government and a capitalist freedom loving country, that other totalitarian countries would side with the side more like them. I would further expect a nation that leans heavily towards appeasement to obtain “peace in our time” would resent a nation that confronts the totalitarian government in hopes of winning “peace and freedom in their children’s time”. I would even further expect any country benefiting under the table illegally from a totalitarian government to resent a country that takes action that would threaten that benefit. I would much further expect if a group of economically and militarily weak nations due to failed socialist policies attempted to unite to strengthen their position against a strong capitalist nation would resent finding that said union was only as strong as its weakest link. The bottom line here is that there were built in propensities for many nations of the world to resent the United States prior to going into Iraq. There already existed a propensity to resent the United States going into Iraq even if shown beyond doubt to all to be the right thing to do. I contend the totalitarian mind, the elitist liberal mind and the mind of those suffering under extreme poverty have a built in propensity to resent the United States and that any disagreement in policy can cause a flare-up against the US; and that these groups comprise the majority of seats of power and influence from nations around the globe.
In conclusion, the sharp disagreement in policy caused a flare-up in anti-Americanism. The United States cannot allow itself to be held hostage out of fear that other nations will not like us if they disagree with our decisions. We must make what decision that the best available information shows to be right. It is no secret I believe Bush did the right thing in going into Iraq. Bush attempted to convince other nations we now know were “on the take” and they refused to join us. With a smaller coalition than desired Bush went into Iraq. At that time, the rest of the world should have taken a neutral or supportive posture toward the effort. They could have prefaced every statement with “We disagreed with going in, but now that you are in …”. This is especially true when the insurgency materialized in full force. With the specter of how protesting Vietnam demoralized the troops, sapped the nations will to continue and encouraged the Vietcong to continue; the United States should have kept a united front in this war and the rest of the world should have constructed a united front to push toward the fastest defeat of the insurgency and quickest transfer of sovereignty back to the Iraqis. However, the mindset described previously cannot abide the thought of a successful operation in Iraq. It must either fail, or be dragged on so long before a final completion that the concept of victory can be plausibly denied. So in order to accomplish this, the strategy of lack of support (moral, financial or military), mass protests, ridicule at every challenge met, circus-like treatment of rising body-counts, constant references to Vietnam and “quagmire”, and a continual high pitched shrill of blame and criticism has been used. It is not that these have any inherent power to quickly resolve this; they have the power to demoralize. The choice was to demoralize US troops, or demoralize the insurgency. We know which one they picked.
