The Boulder Daily Camera
March, 2003
Why do they hate us? It depends upon who are 'they'. We delude ourselves if 'they' can be restricted to a fanatical, militant religious faction of Islam that conducted unprovoked attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001, a US warship in a Yemen harbor and US embassies in Africa. These attacks were motivated not because 'they' abhor our decadent lifestyle antithetical to their faith, although that is part of it, nor because they detest our democracy and our freedoms. Otherwise, how can other democracies flourish around the globe, equally decadent, equally free and yet not elicit the anathema that 'they' freely vent on the United States?
The real reasons are neither profound nor obscure. While Americans and American ideals, rooted mainly in our birth and history, are generally (but not universally) admired, a ground swell of distrust and even fear of the US is gathering momentum among a large and growing sector of humanity, unconnected with fanatical religions. The deeply seated hatred of the US visibly surfacing in the form of terrorist acts is only the extreme form of this distrust and fear. While most of Europe is eternally grateful to the US for coming to its rescue in two world wars, that luster is now eroding in the face of repeated US repudiations of international treaties and conventions which strive to limit the destruction of the natural environment, bring war criminals to justice, reduce the threat of nuclear war, end the proliferation of land mines, help third world countries control their exploding populations, restrain the exploitative practices of multinational corporations, and respect resolutions promulgated by the United Nations in the interest of international justice and peace.
Granted, many of the repugnant policies presently adopted by the Bush Administration were already in place during previous administrations. However, what most appalls many representatives of foreign governments is the unapologetic, naked self-interest of today's US foreign policy, inimical not only to the world at large but, ultimately, to the US as well. Such sentiments, crafted not to offend the US or embarrass their own governments, require a careful reading between the lines. Jean Chretien, taking issue with the US penchant for unilateral action, expressed Canada's commitment to multilateralism, "If it comes to war, I argue that the world should respond through the United Nations."
What offends and shocks the sensibility of ordinary world citizens is our government's cynical disregard of their self-esteem, opinions and sovereignty. Ramesh Thakur from the United Nations University in Tokyo, as quoted in the March 3 issue of The Nation, captures the general mood, "Do American policy-makers really believe they can construct a world in which all others have to obey universal norms and rules but Washington can opt out whenever it likes from whatever it dislikes?".
A word seldom heard before in connection with the United States, even during the inexorable ascendancy of American power during the postwar era, is empire. The idea of America emulating former empires, ancient or modern, once alien to our self-image, is now, apparently, admissible. However, beyond our shores the idea is received with more foreboding and resentment than we may realize, perhaps because the baleful history of empires is still fresh in their collective memory while faded or nonexistent in ours. Some say the American Empire was born in 1898 when the US annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam; stole the revolution from the Cuban rebels; and brutally invaded and colonized the Philippines. In time we returned some of those lands to their rightful owners but the Empire only lay dormant until the end of the World War II, when it began to reassert its 'manifest destiny' through forced interventions. Since 1945 the US engaged in nearly two hundred military incursions cataloged by the Federation of American Scientists in which the United States has been the aggressor.
It may be argued that this role was thrust upon us, particularly as we emerged from the Cold War as the only superpower; it may also be argued that this fractious world needs a policeman. Those may be valid arguments, but still do not get to the root of the world's present disaffection. It is rather our apparent immersion in self-aggrandizement and the ruthless manner by which we strive to satisfy this predilection. Our own history is rife with conquest, betrayal and broken promises, traits that set the pattern of western expansion. These, of course, are beyond rectification by those of us now living. It is not, however, beyond our present power as a people to confront our own government in its pursuit of a demonic, self-serving foreign policy, couched in scurrilous language toward all who would dare to oppose it. With the threat to launch an unprovoked war against a population already destitute, we are at the brink of a terrible abyss. Senator Byrd of West Virginia, on the subject of the impending war, exposed its ineluctable nature, "To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences." Tragically, in the coming carnage the principal victims will be the innocent noncombatants. We approach this abyss in a surreal state of willful ignorance regarding the horrific effect of twelve years of punitive sanctions on an oppressed people as well as the dire consequences of a renewed war. We are uninquisitive of the unproven present culpability of the Iraqi government but blindly accepting of our own government's specious assertions. The World observes and wonders.