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Despising America (MUST READ!)
February 06, 2003 | Greg Sheridan

Posted on 02/05/2003 11:11:28 PM PST by ONA-ASIS

Despising America

THE Howard Government deserves praise for the substance of its policy on Iraq, for sticking to that substance even though it is, for the moment at least, electorally unpopular. John Howard is rightly putting good foreign policy ahead of domestic politics.

Good God, you can't imagine how strange it feels to type those words.

This column has had a lot of criticism of Howard on foreign policy over the years, especially his policy towards Asia. That criticism still stands. But when it faced the biggest question that history has thrown at it – namely the war on terror, the danger posed by the inter-action of rogue nations acquiring weapons of mass destruction with international terrorism, and the specific need to disarm Iraq – the Howard Government stood up for what was right.

That is not to say it has handled the politics of the situation well. But the politics are tricky partly because of the hysterical anti-Americanism afflicting our chattering classes.

One of the fascinating things about the Australian Iraq debate is that Iraq doesn't figure in it much. The Government is almost the only participant talking about Iraq. Simon Crean barely mentioned it in his speech on Tuesday. Many of the commentators ostensibly on Iraq hardly mention Iraq at all, because analysing Iraq requires some intellectual work, whereas sounding off about the US requires only attitude.

Anti-Americanism should be studied as a serious psychological affliction, a pathological condition which paralyses the mind's analytical capacity. Contemporary anti-Americanism has many sources. Let me offer you just a few.

The first is the US itself. No society is more self-critical or self-analytical than the US. As most of our intellectual life is an imitation of the US, so our critique of the US is often an imitation, sometimes a direct import, of the US. Journalists strive to be Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame.

The broad and not very intelligent satire of The New York Times's Maureen Dowd – who as The New Republic's Martin Peretz recently commented, has never said a single interesting thing about any serious policy issue – is read here as serious political insight. The New York Times, The Washington Post and a few other left-liberal east coast papers both hate the Bush administration specifically, and are the avatars of liberal guilt generally. Their exaggerated critique is copied here with super-abundant enthusiasm.

Then there is European anti-Americanism, especially that of France and Germany, two faded and unprincipled lags of old Europe. How come these Americans are so powerful when we are so culturally superior, they cry. Condescension is the preserve of the impotent everywhere.

Because the debate about Iraq takes us to the Middle East, Arab anti-Americanism, which is closely related to Arab anti-Semitism, is important too. There is not a single Arab nation which has made a success of modernisation, nor one which is a democracy. Arab anti-Americanism is similar to its European cousin: why are the Americans so powerful when we are the supreme culture? It must be because of malevolent conspiracy. Most Arab nations promote sickening anti-Semitism. Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism feed into each other in the fantastic conspiracy theories that dominate much of the Arab mind.

Then there is the US's universalism. Because the US is so rich and so big, whatever you don't like in human nature you can find in abundance there.

Then too there is the psychological indulgence of the child and its parents. Many Western baby boomers have never passed psychologically beyond the stage of adolescence, with the US as their simultaneously forbidding and indulgent parents. One of the quintessential syndromes of adolescence is the ability to rebel against your parents, safe in the knowledge that they'll love you and protect you anyway.

This relates to the next source of anti-Americanism which is imitation of the glorified Hollywood rebel. Many of the chattering classes cherish the image of themselves as rebels. But they live and breathe in the security provided ultimately by the US alliance system. They're rebelling against mum and dad. No one is more celebrated in contemporary Western culture than the individualistic rebel. Baby boomers are especially assiduous in awarding themselves the status of rebel moral hero. By only rebelling against the ever tolerant US they risk no personal discomfort from their heroism, always a happy combination.

There is also, in the special hatred of the chattering classes for Bush, a virulent anti-Christian quality. That this is echoed in the official church bureaucracies here, all of them now wholly owned subsidiaries of the Left, is not surprising. The US is the most church-going of modern Western societies. George W. Bush is an avowed orthodox Christian.

So, oddly enough, was Bill Clinton, but that was a kind of elaborate in-joke. He didn't take it seriously so his admirers didn't hold it against him.

But, especially in devotedly secular Australia, the fact that Bush thanks the merciful God who is behind all history sends the Phillip Adams-style mind into something like the heebie-jeebies. Anti-Catholicism used to be the anti-Semitism of the intellectual. Now that Catholics are indistinguishable from Protestants, it's anti-conservative Christian sentiment generally.

Finally, after Bali, Australians also seem to have a mixed-up Singapore syndrome, that we mustn't send the troops overseas or they won't be here to defend us, or we'll upset the terrorists. In truth, our useful but modest military pre-deployment in the Gulf will have no effect on our ability to operate in our own region. And the terrorists hate us already.

By the way, here's a prediction. The balloon will go up, I guess, between February 28 and March 7. Notwithstanding the virulence of pathological anti-Americanism, a swift liberation of Iraq will see public opinion come around and the Howard Government vindicated.

Greg Sheridan is The Australian’s foreign editor.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: antiamericanism; faith
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This is an outstanding article.
1 posted on 02/05/2003 11:11:28 PM PST by ONA-ASIS
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To: ONA-ASIS
The broad and not very intelligent satire of The New York Times's Maureen Dowd – who as The New Republic's Martin Peretz recently commented, has never said a single interesting thing about any serious policy issue...

This just bears repeating - over and over and ov....

2 posted on 02/05/2003 11:24:05 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
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To: ONA-ASIS
Yes, thank you for your support. Good to have you on our side! It's a dirty job, but somebody has to have the b%lls (kiwis) to do it.
3 posted on 02/05/2003 11:26:50 PM PST by LayoutGuru2
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To: AntiGuv
The broad and not very intelligent satire of The New York Times's Maureen Dowd – who as The New Republic's Martin Peretz recently commented, has never said a single interesting thing about any serious policy issue...

I am sure this is true, yet the Times runs two columns of hers every week.

4 posted on 02/05/2003 11:42:53 PM PST by RLJVet
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To: ONA-ASIS
Yes, some great phrases here, I'm committing some to memory. Thank God some writers out there see what we silent majority see in here: despite what the global hand-wringing lamestream media insists, America stands strong against ideological weakness and comfortable slavery. We don't pretend to police the world, but if asked we will kick your regional bully's a$$ and move on. But spare the histrionics, because only our pathetic Hollywood stars are listening.
5 posted on 02/06/2003 12:03:03 AM PST by moodyskeptic
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To: ONA-ASIS
Anti-Americanism should be studied as a serious psychological affliction, a pathological condition which paralyses the mind's analytical capacity

If we're going to call it a disease, we might as well give it a name: AMERICAPHOBIA

Now... how shall we cure these Americaphobic bigots?

6 posted on 02/06/2003 12:19:07 AM PST by Rytwyng
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To: Rytwyng
Maybe we should convene a committee to study the problem. Then let's hold some televised town meetings with a hand picked studio audience from Berkeley and Cambridge hosted by Babwa. Then legislation should be introduced mandating compulsory sensitivity training...
7 posted on 02/06/2003 1:29:55 AM PST by agitator (Ok, mic check...line one...)
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Comment #8 Removed by Moderator

To: Clemenza; PARodrig; rmlew; firebrand; nutmeg; Yehuda; RaceBannon; Warrior Nurse
aussie ping.
9 posted on 02/06/2003 1:54:57 AM PST by Cacique (Censored by Admin Moderator!)
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To: ONA-ASIS
BTTT
10 posted on 02/06/2003 3:03:38 AM PST by visualops
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To: moodyskeptic
Yes, some great phrases here, I'm committing some to memory.

Like this one:

Many of the commentators ostensibly on Iraq hardly mention Iraq at all, because analysing Iraq requires some intellectual work, whereas sounding off about the US requires only attitude.

11 posted on 02/06/2003 3:07:53 AM PST by happygrl
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To: ONA-ASIS
Great!
12 posted on 02/06/2003 3:09:24 AM PST by The Raven (Liberalism: The dream world called denial)
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To: moodyskeptic
Here's another:

Condescension is the preserve of the impotent everywhere.

13 posted on 02/06/2003 3:10:13 AM PST by happygrl
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To: moodyskeptic
He devoted a lot of words to this dea, however:

There is also, in the special hatred of the chattering classes for Bush, a virulent anti-Christian quality. That this is echoed in the official church bureaucracies here, all of them now wholly owned subsidiaries of the Left, is not surprising. The US is the most church-going of modern Western societies. George W. Bush is an avowed orthodox Christian.

So, oddly enough, was Bill Clinton, but that was a kind of elaborate in-joke. He didn't take it seriously so his admirers didn't hold it against him.

But, especially in devotedly secular Australia, the fact that Bush thanks the merciful God who is behind all history sends the Phillip Adams-style mind into something like the heebie-jeebies. Anti-Catholicism used to be the anti-Semitism of the intellectual. Now that Catholics are indistinguishable from Protestants, it's anti-conservative Christian sentiment generally.

BOOKMARKED!

14 posted on 02/06/2003 3:17:15 AM PST by happygrl
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To: JohnHuang2
Outstanding!
15 posted on 02/06/2003 3:20:03 AM PST by happygrl
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To: AntiGuv
>>The broad and not very intelligent satire of The New York Times's Maureen Dowd ? who as The New Republic's Martin Peretz recently commented, has never said a single interesting thing about any serious policy issue...<<

And, by the way,

Did you know Catherine Zeta-Jones is pregnant again?

16 posted on 02/06/2003 3:20:58 AM PST by Jim Noble
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To: happygrl
Thanks for the ping -- will read =^)
17 posted on 02/06/2003 3:21:44 AM PST by JohnHuang2
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To: ONA-ASIS
A brilliant piece. Can we get this gentleman syndicated here in the States?

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

18 posted on 02/06/2003 4:58:53 AM PST by fporretto (Curmudgeon Emeritus, Palace of Reason)
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To: ONA-ASIS
Maybe you should have included the LINK and source of this article. When I first started reading it I was scratching my head as to who this "Howard government" was.
19 posted on 02/06/2003 5:07:11 AM PST by PJ-Comix (Redundancy Can Be Quite Catchy As Well As Contagious)
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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