LETTER FROM EUROPE: Our Leading Export
Gedmin, Jeffrey
LETTER FROM EUROPE JEFFREY GEDMIN Our Leading Export r 11 HIS SUMMER the European Commission invited me to moderate a discussion featuring a senior EU official who had come to Berlin. The...
...It's nothing new, of course, but American anti-Americanism seems to have become a leading U.S...
...The Commission's office is near the Brandenburg Gate, around the corner from the French Embassy, a little Starbucks tucked in between...
...I guess every patriot has his strategy...
...Inexplicably, Europeans perpetually complain about its America-centric view and pro-Bush bias...
...Take American Voices Abroad, an ostensibly nonpartisan group, whose website offers links to Al Jazeera, Iraq Occupation Watch, and Electronic Intifada, among other fair-minded impartial outfits...
...Ask any man, woman, or dog in Paris, London, or Rome and they will instruct you to switch to the BBC for fair and objective news and analysis...
...Better to finesse, she continued, like "I've been traveling a lot and have moved around a good bit the last few years...
...It was just because we were Americans...
...A mother and daughter traveling together on a train in Italy told USA Today recently that they were at first shocked when two men in their twenties called the two ladies "pigs...
...It's run by a German...
...When Hans Blix was preparing one of his last reports, Brahimi noted: "The report could be key to any decision on launching a U.S...
...export...
...Then there is my personal favorite, CNN International, a kind of allyou-can-eat buffet from which ravenous anti-Americans can feed...
...50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2004 JEFFREY GE N If you think CNN in the U.S...
...When I arrived in Berlin a couple of years ago, a new staffer I had just recruited from the States told me she had gone out for drinks with another American, a young woman who had made Berlin her home...
...A typical CNN International interview on Iraq goes something like this: Anchor: Democracy takes decades to develop even under the best of circumstances and nobody really thinks that such an experiment has any realistic chance in a country like Iraq, do they...
...The auditorium was full, the comments measured, intelligent, and respectful...
...I remember CNN's Jim Clancy egging on former acting secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger in a pre-war interview, which became a contest of who opposed the war more, the interviewer or the interviewee...
...Being an American down on America is expected by Europeans...
...Finally, perhaps worst of all, Europeans get the expats...
...Americans abroad, many of them military and dependents, vote Republican by a ratio of 3 to 1. But it's the other side that is usually louder...
...Rym Brahimi, the daughter of Lakhdar Brahimi, the Algerian diplomat who represented Kofi Annan in Iraq, reported for CNN in Baghdad during the war...
...policies which lead to injustice...
...Then suddenly the distinguished guest quoted George W. Bush, in the context of—what else?—American arrogance and unilateralism...
...Bush-bashing has become a staple here...
...Speakers often follow the Michael Moore model...
...I recall a member of Gerhard Schr6der's government telling me last year how much the chancellor, despite certain differences over policy, genuinely likes and respects the U.S...
...Inexplicably, Europeans perpetually complain about its America-centric view and pro-Bush bias...
...The president had said: "Part of [our] history has been written by others...
...military invasion of the oil-rich country...
...SEPTEMBER 2004 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 51 If you think CNN in the U.S...
...Schroder could never admit to such a thing publicly...
...There are some seven million Americans of voting age living abroad, with 500,000 in Europe (10,000 in Berlin...
...Middle East Expert: It's true that enormous challenges exist, but if you look at...
...The mission statement of American Voices Abroad reads like socialist claptrap from Cold War times...
...q‘.1Jeffrey Gedmin is director of the Aspen Institute Berlin...
...As in: Osama wrote part of our history on September 11, but now it's our turn for the rest...
...the rest will be written by us...
...has a liberal bias, then try a steady diet of CNN International...
...AVA opposes "wars of aggression by the U.S...
...The above quote indeed came from Bush, but in his February 2003 speech to the American Enterprise Institute the president was giving the back of his hand not to our European allies, but to the terrorists...
...Its website shows a photo from a recent demonstration in Berlin, with one participant carrying an American flag with the words "We Say No" written across it...
...has a liberal bias, then try a steady diet of CNN International...
...president...
...Vote 44 is a new association out to mobilize American voters abroad to remove the 43rd president in November...
...When the newcomer answered the bartender honestly—he had asked the girls where they were from—the good expat pulled her new friend aside to explain that being from America was not exactly something you want to advertise...
...and seeks "to promote economic and social justice and oppose U.S...
...Anchor: But wait a minute, the administration didn't plan for the post-war period, there is chaos throughout the country, and why should we believe that Iraqis really want...
...The second source is more perplexing—antiAmericanism from Americans themselves...
...That's a relief...
...The anti-Americanismhere is fed by two sources...
...Europeans have imported Michael Moore's documentaries and the movie Super Size Me (advertised over here with the teaser, "Why Are the Americans So Fat...
...I am suggesting,however, that many anti-Bush partisans don't seem to be terribly fond of the Motherland...
...The audience moaned...
...Brahimi has since left CNN to marry the half-brother of King Abdullah of Jordan...
...Now National Public Radio is looking for a foothold over here...
...Even Lyndon LaRouche is active here...
...But then they shrugged it off: "It was nothing personal...
...Maybe that will help...
...They get the International Herald Tribune, which contributes to the problem with its sophisticated anti-Americanism, now accelerated by its being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York Times without the moderating influence of its former partner, the Washington Post...
...First, a culture of pandering in which no politician would dare to appear supportive of Bush...
...That is not offensive...
...No, I am not suggesting that to be anti-Bush is the same as being anti-American...
...If the facts don't fit the ideology, overlook the facts...
...Such groups permeate Europe...
Vol. 37 • September 2004 • No. 7
