Anna Lindh, whose death last week shocked the entire world community, was the popular Foreign Minister of Sweden and one of the most widely admired politicians in the world. She was also an outspoken critic of President Bush’s war on Iraq, describing him as the “Lone Ranger” for his reckless go-it-alone approach.
Lindh stood for democracy and transparency at home and peace and cooperation abroad-something that is not too late for the Bush administration to emulate. Bush, the “accidental president” in a disputed election, has pursued a divisive and deceptive domestic agenda on such important matters as the federal budget, education, energy, environment, tax cuts and much else. The way he rushed to war in Iraq illustrates this same pattern of deception and recklessness on a larger scale, which has turned the world against the United States.
Even the World Council of Churches, at its meeting in Geneva two weeks ago, called for American forces to withdraw from Iraq and transfer matters to the United Nations. The Council said the invasion of Iraq was “immoral” and “ill-advised,” and called on the American and British governments to pay reparations to the Iraqi people for the damages done to them.
It is mind-boggling how in just two years the Bush administration has managed to turn the global surge of goodwill and sympathy toward the United States into the lowest esteem in which the world has held us in recent memory. Even in European countries that are our traditional allies, the common perception is that America’s “mad cow(boy) disease” can cause havoc in the rest of the world.
This is truly unfortunate. More than ever, we need the world to be with us in the global war on terrorism. Yet Bush just doesn’t get it. In his recent address to the nation, he urged other countries to do more in Iraq and asked for help from the United Nations, but he still refuses to transfer any real control. One wonders if Bush realizes or even cares how brazen his demands appear to the rest of the world.
It is surely not in good faith that other countries are being pressured to shoulder responsibility for an action taken in utter disregard of international law and world opinion. It is a rule taught early on to children that if you create a mess, you clean it up.
In today’s complex and interdependent world, peace cannot be secured by one country going it alone. Also, military force alone cannot bring peace and safety. Peace can be achieved only with justice, which requires international collaboration and an equitable global system. To bring the world together to work toward a lasting peace-a world that Bush has so alienated-requires vision, courage and cooperation in the best of the American tradition, which are pitifully lacking in the Bush administration.
America’s lofty peaks are many. Here I cite only a few. On the domestic front, America inspires the world with her secular Constitution and Jeffersonian democracy. In the global arena, the Wilsonian idealism of a collaborative international order based on diplomacy has been a shining example to a troubled world. Along with this, it is the basic goodness of the American people-their kindness, openness, ethic of hard work and sense of fairness-as well as their reservoir of talent, ingenuity and their indomitable spirit-all this and much more is what is best in the American tradition.
The Bush administration doesn’t represent the best in America. Bush’s rhetoric of fear to push his domestic agenda without adequate public scrutiny or accountability stifles the American spirit of democracy. His shameless embrace of the religious far right in matters of state is an affront to our secular Constitution. And his cowboy logic of “shoot first and negotiate never” will simply bring more rifts and grief in an already polarized world.
The reason why America is perpetually at odds with the rest of the world is not because of any inherent lack of goodness in America. Rather, it is a combination of a complex set of factors that has led to it. Pervasive conservatism and religiosity that promotes dogma over reason, a lack of political diversity and debates and especially the deadening effects of excessive consumerism that defines our culture and values have led to a systematic moronization of the average American. This breeds apathy and makes us gullible, which in turn makes us vulnerable to manipulation. When we don’t ask questions, we can be manipulated easily. The conservative-corporate political establishment, which puts corporate profit over global welfare and which the Bush administration stands for, makes good use of it.
Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe that there was a connection between the events of Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein because the Bush administration routinely cited Iraq while talking about the terrorist attacks. Now Bush categorically denies any evidence to connect Iraq with the attacks, but this admission comes only after capitalizing on the carefully orchestrated misinformation that he and his administration had disseminated earlier.
Americans routinely believe that they are heavily taxed, yet we are the least-taxed people in almost the entire industrialized world!
A majority of Americans (75 percent) also believe, for example, that the United States spends far too much on foreign aid. The average estimate of those polled believe it is 18 percent of the federal budget. In reality, the United States ranks the lowest of all 21 developed countries in the share of national resources devoted to economic aid for poor countries-only 0.11 percent of GDP, which is about $4 in taxes for an average American toward helping the world’s poorest 600 million people.
Yet we are by far the largest beneficiary of the resources from the poor countries who are being harmed through an inequitable global order, continuously shaped and coercively imposed by our powerful political, business and military machines. Most Americans don’t see it this way because they buy the establishment propaganda without question.
This mass ignorance and apathy caters to trivia and shuns substance. The hounding by conservatives and the media of President Clinton regarding the Lewinsky affair got him impeached by a vindictive Congress, yet the impeachable offense of rushing to war under false pretense led George Bush to the peak of his popularity. When would America realize that a President who drops his pants is far more preferable than one who drops bombs?
Since being “selected” to office, Bush has done everything to undermine global cooperation, justice and international law, and threatens to make the United Nations ineffectual in the important matters of war and peace. This shortsightedness will eventually make the world a far more dangerous place than it is today, giving the network of terrorism its global reach and resilience.
The tragic events of Sept. 11 were a wake-up call for America. Looking back on these two years, one wonders whether we have learned anything at all.