Page 2 of 4 The losing battle against
anti-Americanism By Nancy Snow
or malevolent. They make a distinction between opposition, which may be but is
not always justified, and anti-Americanism, which they define as illegitimate
and extremist:
Of course, opposition to specific American actions or
policies is easily understandable and may well be justifiable, but
anti-Americanism as a whole is not. The reason for this conclusion is simply
that the
United States is not a terrible or evil society, whatever its shortcomings. It
does not seek world domination and its citizens do not take pleasure in
deliberately injuring others. There are many occasions when decisions
inevitably have drawbacks or bad effects. There are equally many times when
mistakes are made. But here is where the line can be drawn between legitimate
criticism and anti-Americanism. [1]
There are two problems with
this analysis. First of all, it doesn't take into account all the Americans who
have challenged US policies. Progress on US policy, whether it is civil rights
and civil liberties, protesting the Iraq war, or expanding rights for women and
minorities, is often met with fierce resistance. Sometimes opponents use the
label "anti-American" to chill this dissent or shut down all debate.
The Rubins' analysis also doesn't acknowledge the real and malign effects of
certain US policies as well as US attempts to maintain its unipolar power in
the world. Three years before September 11, then-president of the Eurasia
Foundation Charles William Maynes criticized the United States for the way it
"imperiously imposes trade sanctions that violate international understandings;
presumptuously demands national legal protection for its citizens, diplomats,
and soldiers who are subject to criminal prosecution, while insisting other
states forgo that right; and unilaterally dictates its view on UN reforms or
the selection of a new secretary general".
While the events of September 11 did not alter US determination to maintain its
global position, global responses to that determination certainly did change.
The reaction became more vitriolic and organized at a state and non-state
level. Also, anti-American sentiment was historically reserved for the policies
and personalities of a government, but not the people themselves. Especially
after the 2004 presidential election, 21st-century anti-Americanism is just as
much directed at the American people. As Julia Sweig writes in Friendly Fire:
Americans can no longer take superior comfort
from assurances that even our closest historic allies hate us only because of
our power and wealth. In addition to the historical, structural, and economics
dynamics feeding Anti-America, recent US foreign policy - what we do - has
provided a seemingly endless array of inflammatory gaffes that were born not in
some madrassa 6,000 miles away, nor in a plot hatched by a few
neo-conservative intellectuals, but of our own society, politics, culture, and
actions. [2]
Ironically, one of the preemptive techniques of
combating anti-Americanism, the association of American values with universal
values, has exacerbated rather than solved the problem. In the past,
English-American intellectual and pamphleteer Tom Paine (1737-1809) made the
struggle for American independence part of a global fight for freedom. Today,
this assertion of American values as universal comes from an imposing
superpower rather than a scrappy underdog.
US promotion of the universality of democratic values such as equality,
egalitarianism, rule of law, human rights, civil liberties, and freedom are
problematic, particularly in the Middle East, which has witnessed three
invasions of Arab and Muslim countries by the United States in the past 14
years. Though it divided opinion in the United States, the Arab street viewed
the first Gulf War as mostly acceptable. After all, Iraq had invaded Kuwait,
which in turn asked the United States to intervene and kick out the
perpetrator. This first invasion of Iraq, which involved many more nations, had
the backing of the UN. Even the war in Afghanistan garnered greater worldwide
sympathy, since it followed an unprovoked attack on the United States and the
organizers of the attack were thought to be staging their operation inside
Afghanistan.
The war in Iraq, however, has become a deeply divisive policy in the United
States and the world. The Middle East population heavily opposes the US
presence in Iraq, as do many populations in allied countries of Europe and in
Japan who think the United States has overstepped its superpower privileges.
The Bush Doctrine of preventive war hasn't convinced the global public that the
war in Iraq is a just war.
Selling the US abroad
The Department of State remains the chief coordinator of open-sourced US
public-diplomacy efforts to counter negative attitudes
