Andrew Sullivan: A lesson for America-haters

In the end, the International Olympic Committee relented. It allowed the actual flag found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center to be carried in the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City games. It was even prepared to let it be flown over the stadium. It took a certain amount of persuasion, but in the end they let the Americans have it.

“These games are held in the United States and we have deep respect and sympathy for everything that has happened since September 11,” said François Carrard, the IOC’s director-general. “But let’s not forget the games is a universal event.”

Perhaps it’s appropriate that the Olympic Games are being held in the United States at this time. They sum up the often exquisitely awkward relationship between America and the rest of the world.

The Olympics are designed to be truly international occasions, although they inevitably play to the host country’s nationalism and, in the competitions themselves, to other countries’ nationalism as well. But each time they are held in America, this tension between internationalist aspirations and nationalist reality seems to increase exponentially.

Remember Atlanta — where American audiences were regarded as oblivious to athletes from other nations? Above all, remember Los Angeles? That year — 1984 — was a pivotal one in the cold war. Europe was tense with cruise missiles facing their Soviet equivalents.

Four years earlier the United States had boycotted the Moscow games and this time the Soviets returned the favour. Ronald Reagan was gearing up for his landslide re-election. Europeans were ambivalent about a cowboy president when they weren’t terrified.

The opening ceremony was an almost lugubriously kitschy spectacle — with dozens of Elvis impersonators, corporate logos everywhere, Lionel Richie singing and Up With People grinning and leaping their way into the collective consciousness. I remember watching it and wincing. But I also remember being transfixed by its exuberance and power.

I recalled the creaking fascist monotones of the Moscow games compared with the multicoloured ebullience of LA. I turned to my friend who was watching it with me and said: “You know what? They may be vulgar, but they’re going to win this war.”

And win it they did. But the difficulty America now has in dealing with the world is far greater than it was in 1984. Back then it was a choice between the Americans and the Soviets. Now there’s a choice between the Americans . . . and everyone else. In 2002, there isn’t even a faint rival to the United States in global domination.

The US defence budget already dwarfs most of its competitors’ combined. With the projected vast increases in military spending, the gap will widen even further. Nato itself seems increasingly redundant, since the high-tech American military has only the British even broadly in their league, and genuine military alliances are becoming harder and harder to forge.

America’s economy, despite the current slowdown, has increased its lead over Europe only in the past decade and left Japan in the dust. With the initial phase of the war on terrorism coming to a brief resolution, it is also clear that America’s global reach and technological superiority is making the word “hegemony” seem like an understatement.

So the resentment of American power — even among close allies such as Britain — is not only likely, it’s inevitable. And because there isn’t even a close rival emerging to challenge this dominance, the resentment will only increase. We’ve seen what this amounts to in the form of the failed satrapies of the Islamic Middle East: a mixture of begging bowls for American aid and murderous terrorism in resentment of it.

In China it is greeted with deep suspicion and a ferocious new nationalism — but there is still no sign of an actual, substantive Chinese military able to compete for global dominance with America. In Europe there is the cult of the EU among the elites, and the euro for the masses. But every European country understands that world power is something in the history books, not feasible, if even desirable, today.

The more interesting question is: what should the United States do about resentment of its hegemony? Sure, it can and should consult its allies more widely. But when those allies (with the exception of Britain) have very little substantive to contribute in, say, waging the war in Afghanistan, those consultations can end up being exercises in condescension or phoniness.

Sure, America can and should take a more active role in many international institutions. But it cannot be expected to provide the bulk of the funding for bodies (like the UN) whose main task seems at times to be attacking the United States and its allies.

Nor should a great power be expected consistently to subordinate its own interests to those of other states, especially when its actions actually protect those other states from harm.

If Europeans resent America’s power, they need to ask themselves: would they like to confront global terrorism without it? Imagine Al-Qaeda intact today, entering into close contact with Iraq or Iran to get nuclear, biological or chemical weapons to detonate in the middle of London.

Feel better about American hegemony now? Then of course when it appears that the United States might actually take its allies’ advice and retreat into ambivalence, there is a chorus of disapproval and widespread fears of a new “isolationism”.

America, when you look at it, is damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t. Which is why Americans, at some point, just get on with it and ignore the chorus of whining from around the world.

That’s the underlying reality and we might as well acknowledge it. That’s why the IOC gave in to American demands that its WTC flag be a part of the opening ceremony in Salt Lake City. That’s why, in the end, the United States will eventually ignore allies who refuse to co-operate in the war against terrorism and terrorist states.

Real power always finds a way. And the only corrective to American dominance is not an attempt to weaken America or poison the world by fomenting hatred of her. At the moment, when America is the firmest bulwark against a terrorist network that aims to destroy every free country, that would be a particularly foolish venture.

No, the only corrective to American hegemony is for other countries to emulate the free markets, free thought and free institutions that undergird the United States and make American economic and military power possible. But that’s so much harder than the panacea of envy, isn’t it?

In the end, the International Olympic Committee relented. It allowed the actual flag found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center to be carried in the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City games.

The fact that President Bush said he was aware of the controversy over allowing that flag and "spoke" to a couple of people about it may have had something to do with them allowing us to have the flag there.

I can see one of the stealth president's people telling the Euro Trash and Third World Trash of the Olympic committee that our WTC flag would get its appropriate honor at the Olympics.

When the Euro Trash and Third World trash argued, they were told, "You are either with us or against us!"

Then, the foriegn trash made phone calls to their government heads. Next, their government heads called up the White House or State to complain about honoring this flag.

Then they got the same response, "You are either with us or against us! Just ask the Talibaniers, who are still alive, what this statement really means, "You are either with us or against us!"

A few hours later that US flag was honored!

As Andrew Sullivan said, this is a lesson for all America Haters. Those out of this country, and who live in this country who hate America should pay attention to this statement:

You are either with us or against us!

Andrew's last paragraph says it all. You know what? If France was growing as enormously as the U.S. is growing now, and becoming even more powerful, you know what Americans would do? They'd be over there in France checking out how they were doing it, and more than willing to emulate France and improve on what she was doing.

That's where America's energy comes from, partly. We are quite secure in who we are, and very interested in anyone on earth who is successful at something we want to do. We'll give them credit and then go them one better.

It's called character. American character. We don't waste energy being envious or resentful. We are a can-do, not a wannabe, nation.

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