Opponents to Washington's foreign policy, from Beijing to Moscow and Caracas, are not operating in a vacuum, writes Gamil Mattar* Fidel Castro, Washington used to boast, was the only troublemaker in Latin America, a continent of 35 governments, most of them loyal to, and dependant upon, the US. Then along came Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales to give South America a new injection of vigour, just as US popularity plummeted to an all-time low. Not that Latin America is alone in its sentiments. International public opinion, as gauged in a recent opinion poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which canvassed 91,000 people in 50 nations, found the great majority expressing discontent with America. In practical terms, the general tide of global opinion has translated itself into vehement opposition to American interventionism. How did sentiment towards the US turn so sour? How did the Bush administration, in particular, and US policy, in general, manage to turn international opinion pundits into anti-American troublemakers? In America against the World Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes write that a poll they conducted through the Pew Global Attitudes Project reveals that the US, once seen as a bastion of democracy, is now viewed as a warmonger. Seventy per cent of those polled outside the US believe that the world would be safer if another military power emerged to rival the US for global leadership. Some analysts see the results as a confirmation of Washington's dismal foreign policy performance since the end of the Cold War. Despite the imperialist drive of Republican presidents and the growing militarism of the American state apparatus, they argue, the US has failed to consolidate the bases of its empire or establish an American-led mono-polar system capable of ensuring peace and stability. Leftist American historian Howard Zinn has contributed an important insight to the debate. Why is it, he asks, that the American people and press invariably believe the deceptions of their presidents when going to war only to discover later that they have been duped? Zinn attributes the phenomenon to two primary causes; the first involving "the dimension of time", by which he means an absence of historical perspective, the second "the dimension of space", ie an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. Americans are "penned in by the arrogant idea" that their country "is the centre of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior". This ethnocentric sense of moral superiority into which Americans have been inculcated by their educational system and their culture makes them particularly vulnerable to government deception. How can the leaders of this great nation go wrong? What they have not been told is that their country's political history is full of presidents who blatantly lied to the American people when they told them they had to go to war to defend their land, democracy and way of life. Moreover, the American people have perpetuated this phenomenon by not correcting their history books which tell American schoolchildren that in 1846 President Polk declared war against Mexico because Mexico had "shed American blood on American soil" whereas in fact Polk and an elite group of landowners were anxious to get their hands on half of Mexico. In 1898 President McKinley told Americans that his aim in invading Cuba was to liberate it from Spanish rule. The truth was that the United Fruit Company wanted to expel foreigners from the Caribbean so as to eliminate competition. The same president also lied when he sent American forces into the Philippines to "spread civilisation among the savage natives". The motive, again, was purely territorial. Zinn goes on to list the other instances of presidential whoppers: Truman's justifications for dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Kennedy's, Johnson's and Nixon's lies for escalating the war in Vietnam, Reagan's reasons for invading Granada and Bush senior's and Bush junior's ostensible grounds for their wars against Iraq. Zinn goes on to argue that if the American people learned "history that is honest about the past" they would cease to allow their presidents to lie to them. He adds that until the American people honestly appraise their history "then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives." This analysis, which appeared in the April edition of The Progressive, goes a long way to explaining the worldwide unrest against the US and its policies. What really makes people's gall rise, in Latin America, the Arab and Islamic world, in Britain, Germany, China and Russia, is the arrogance with which the Americans, even at their most diplomatic, claim to be acting in the name of principles which they are happy to trample underfoot. Justice, individual freedoms, minority rights, the rights of the poor -- of particular concern to the majority of the world's population, the right of self-determination, the separation between religion and politics, a decent public education system, a reasonably priced healthcare system, the right to a dignified retirement pension -- all have been systematically eroded inside the US even before their supposed export abroad. International public opinion is no dope. It knows that one in five children in the US, a country with an $8.3 trillion national debt, is born in poverty, that the WHO ranks the US 37th in terms of the quality of healthcare it provides its citizens and that more than 40 countries have lower infant mortality rates. These facts have become part of the image of America in recent years, along with the way it is pushing its weight around. During the presidency of George W Bush political activists and government officials in many countries have become ever more determined to combat Washington's arrogance and are developing ways of doing so. Morales and Chavez did not emerge in a vacuum, and what applies to the two Latin American leaders applies to officials in Iran and Palestine, government leaders in Moscow and Beijing, and the leaders of political parties and mass movements in Germany, Britain, France, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, South Korea, Pakistan and Indonesia. They are all graduates of the same academy of opposition to US policy that Washington has created. And more are on their way. In Addis Ababa the president of Ethiopia recently turned round and criticised the policies of both the US and UK, reserving especially harsh words for Prime Minister Blair. Apparently the West's friends in Africa are about to form the next wave of anti-American agitators. Recently, I also read reports of an Arab leader, whose government boasts of its close strategic relationship with the US, announcing to his people that the US was punishing his government because "we refuse to toe the line". Here is yet another example of a US ally, whose regime is propped up by American political and financial support, joining the flood of opponents to American policy that are thumbing their noses at the US in order to placate their own people, because they themselves are angry or vengeful, or because it is now the thing to do. Anti-Americanism comes in varying degrees. It ranges from leaders who rail against US intervention in their national affairs to the leaders of Al-Qaeda and the like who are waging small wars in various parts of the world against the US, its friends and their interests. The Shanghai Group, originally formed by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, is one of the fruits of the American school for producing malcontents. During its first convention the group issued a resolution condemning Washington for attempting to create a military cordon around Russia and China and demanding the departure of US forces from Central Asia. The group is expected to escalate its opposition to US policies in Central and Southern Asia, and has announced that Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia will be invited to join the organisation during its next meeting, to be held in Shanghai on the eve of the G8 Summit in St Petersburg. The US needs to do more than tidy up its image. It needs a substantive, rather than cosmetic, improvement in its performance. It is incredible, after all the setbacks Washington has encountered abroad, that Washington could remain as arrogant and highhanded towards Arab and Muslim peoples as it was during Olmert's recent visit, when it insisted that they should mind their own business while the US and Israel, with help from some Arab regimes, puts into effect a new policy of genocide against the Palestinians while simultaneously complaining of troublemakers and extremists. * The writer is director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
