[iwar] [fc:'Anti-Americanism'.has.roots.in.US.foreign.policy]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-28 13:58:15

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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           'Anti-Americanism' has roots in US foreign policy
                   Commentary by Mushahid Hussain
                      Asia Times, Oct. 27, 2001

 ISLAMABAD - Addressing the American people on October 11, US
President George W Bush seemed as perplexed as millions of Americans
about the "vitriolic hatred for America in some Islamic countries". He
added: "Like most Americans, I just cannot believe it because I know
how good we are."

The day after Bush's remarks, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt and
Palestine witnessed more violent anti-American protests. What accounts
for this dichotomy between the American self-image and how others,
particularly Muslims, view them?

For any foreign visitor to America, the goodness of the average
American, and the fact that immigrants rightly perceive America as
providing opportunities and freedoms denied at home is certainly an
important ingredient that makes the US the world's most popular
destination. Their deeply ingrained empathy, candor, humor and hard
work endear Americans to all those who interact with them.

How is this "good guy" transformed into the "bad guy" abroad? The
problem is that American goodness is hardly ever exported, remaining
confined to its shores. This gap between what American says at home -
liberties, rule of law and democracy - is rarely practiced in American
foreign policy.

After all, what was common among a diverse group of leaders such as
Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Fidel Castro or Sukarno?
They were all great admirers of America and the American Revolution
prior to assuming office. They all looked up to the United States of
America, whose 20th Century role and ideology had been defined by
Woodrow Wilson as supporting the "right of self-determination" of
subjugated peoples and colonies.

An enterprising American journalist, Edgar Snow, whose sympathetic
account of the Chinese Communist Party's struggle, Red Star over
China, remains a classic, launched Mao on the international stage.

When Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam's independence from France on
September 2, 1945, he borrowed the opening words from the American
Declaration of Independence regarding the "inalienable right of people
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", so inspired was he by
American ideals.

Before the July 1952 overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy which he and
12 other members of the Free Officers Movement initiated, Nasser was
very close to the Americans, including the Middle East chief of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of that period, Kermit Roosevelt,
who was covertly communicating with Nasser through Anwar Sadat.

Indonesian leader Sukarno idolized Thomas Jefferson and his speeches
were laced with Jeffersonian quotes. And when Castro launched the
Cuban revolution, he was confident of receiving American support.

But then, what happened? After coming to power, they became implacable
American foes after a rude shock that the America they admired and
idolized and the one they had read about in history books was
different in real life.

Then there were two events which were to prove a forerunner of the
emerging patterns of American policy: the first successful CIA coup
against a popular, democratic government because it was perceived to
be acting contrary to US economic interests, led by Dr Mossadeq in
Iran in 1953.

A decade later, the CIA engineered the ouster and assassination of
South Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem, a friend and ally of the
United States, simply because he had outlived his utility to American
interests.

From ousting an elected nationalist to killing a friend, the US
persona was now being defined as an amoral, ruthless power whose
foreign policy instruments were capable of anything, irrespective of
friend or foe. It was perhaps in this context that Henry Kissinger
once remarked, "to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be
a friend is fatal".

Negativism about America has largely been derived and shaped by
predominant popular perceptions in three areas: dignity, double
standards and democracy.

The leading London-based Saudi-owned Arabic newspaper, Al Hayat,
recently carried a poet's lament on the plight of the Arabs that
includes lines such as "Children are dying, but no one makes a move.
Houses are demolished, but no one makes a move. Holy places are
desecrated, but no one makes a move. I am fed up with life in the
world of mortals."

The author of these lines is not some raving radical in a Palestinian
refugee camp, but Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain, and the
sentiments he has expressed represent what is by now almost a
universally-held belief among Arabs, the poor and the elite alike.

For Muslims, the double standards they see reinforced this hostility.
For instance, when United Nations resolutions apply to Iraq, they
exempt Israel. And nuclear weapons are even given religious labels,
such as Pakistan's "Islamic" bomb. Or terrorism is treated as a
virtual Muslim monopoly, forgetting that Timothy McVeigh, Baruch
Goldstein (the Jewish settler who gunned down 29 worshippers in a
Palestinian mosque in 1994) and the Tamil Tigers, who blew up Rajiv
Gandhi, were not Muslim.

Democracy, or its absence in countries that are American allies, is
another key ingredient of anti-Americanism, more so when the United
States has conspired or connived to undermine the democratic process.

Patrice Lumumba was ousted in 1960 in the Congo and replaced by
General Mobuto. In 1965, Sukarno's replacement by General Suharto was
followed by a massacre of almost 500,000 Indonesians, some of whose
names were in lists proved by the American Embassy to Suharto's men.
And in 1973, the elected leftist President of Chile, Salvador Allende,
was ousted and killed in a CIA-backed military coup.

It is no surprise that those peoples in these countries traced their
plight at home - the injustice, the police state repression, the
poverty, and the corruption - to American actions.

However, not many Americans were aware of the adverse impact of
American foreign policy on billions of lives overseas. All that
changed on September 11, 2001. Nineteen suicide bombers have done more
damage to America's self-confidence than World War II, Vietnam or the
Cold War combined. On October 7, after returning from bombing
Afghanistan that Sunday night, Commander Biff, head of an F-14 Tomcat
squadron, told the media: "Tonight was about restoring America's
confidence."

However, restoring America's confidence must not be at the expense of
renewing America's relationship with the Muslim world, which is facing
severe strains. Hence, the crisis needs to be handled with patience,
maturity and wisdom.

Of all the hordes of Western journalists who have been in Pakistan
after September 11, not one has reported any hostility or harassment
from the people they encounter in the streets, even those in
anti-American demonstrations.

There is no personal animosity toward any American or Westerner from
people they have met, only a strident political critique and
resentment of American foreign policy, which is where the roots of
anti-Americanism lie.

(Inter Press Service)

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