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I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world.
Telegraph.Com ^ | Filed: 08/05/2003) | Margaret Drabble

Posted on 05/07/2003 5:15:08 PM PDT by Leisler

I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.

My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.

I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.

I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.

It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.

Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.

We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. Long ago, Voltaire told us that we invent words to conceal truths. More recently, Orwell pointed out to us the dangers of Newspeak.

But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.

There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history.

I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win.

On April 29, 2000, I switched on CNN in my hotel room and, by chance, saw an item designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I took to be Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.

"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator intoned, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough.

The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but had lost the peace.

Just leave Shakespeare and Shakespeare's homeland out of this squalid bit of revisionism, I thought at the time. Little did I then think that now, three years on, Shakespeare's country would have been dragged by our leader into this illegal, unjustifiable, aggressive war. We are all contaminated by it. Not in my name, I want to keep repeating, though I don't suppose anybody will listen.

America uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.)

America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.

They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom.

I keep writing to Jack Straw about the so-called "illegal combatants", including minors, who are detained there without charge or trial or access to lawyers, and I shall go on writing to him and his successors until something happens. This one-way correspondence may last my lifetime. I suppose the minors won't be minors for long, although the youngest of them is only 13, so in time I shall have to drop that part of my objection, but I shall continue to protest.

A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of power… Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."

We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots.

I hate feeling this hatred. I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened. There is another America. Long live the other America, and may this one pass away soon.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: algorelostgetoverit; angermismanagement; antiamerican; antiamericanism; barfalert; blameamericafirst; boohoo; callthewaaambulance; commie; communist; darkside; dyke; europeans; fatdrunkandstupid; hateamericafirst; hockeyplayers; iraqifreedom; kneepadbrigade; leftist; liberals; loser; lovedclintonswars; mccarthywasright; mediabias; wahwahwah; whocares
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To: Paul Atreides
LOL!
221 posted on 05/07/2003 7:42:07 PM PDT by Pukka Puck
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To: Leisler
Margaret Drabble says:   "We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots."

Now you've crossed the line Maggie.

--Boot Hill

222 posted on 05/07/2003 7:45:11 PM PDT by Boot Hill
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To: Leisler
I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened.

I know, Margaret. The election was really very, very close, wasn't it?

Just a few more stolen votes and... ah, but what's the point in reopening those old wounds now? Still it must be terribly painful for you to reflect on how America might have taken a very different path that the one that has free two nations.

I imagine it eats away at you... makes it hard to sleep... sucks the joy out of your life by surfacing to torment you at odd moments.

At least I hope it does.

223 posted on 05/07/2003 7:50:21 PM PDT by Interesting Times (Leftists view the truth as an easily avoidable nuisance)
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To: FirstTomato
They woun't notice my being ugly, because I'll be too kick ass mean.
224 posted on 05/07/2003 7:55:32 PM PDT by Leisler (I have a walker, and know how to use it.)
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To: Maigrey
"About the only thing I agree on with this trollop:
I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies..."

Yes, especially the ones that tell lies about history.
225 posted on 05/07/2003 7:57:57 PM PDT by Pukka Puck
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To: goldstategop
Another professional America-hater. Ah, jealousy, thy name is fugly old woman.
226 posted on 05/07/2003 7:59:02 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: Petronski
I love that picture as well. It seems to me that she bears more then a passing resemblence to our lovely First Lady Laura Bush.
227 posted on 05/07/2003 8:00:05 PM PDT by LauraJean (Fukai please pass the squid sauce)
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To: Prodigal Son
Great post.
228 posted on 05/07/2003 8:02:11 PM PDT by MEG33
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To: okie01; Travis McGee
"If it wasn't for big mean Americans with cartoon characters painted on their tanks and bombers, she would be speaking German today, and wearing a swastika on her uniform."

That's probably why she's pissed.

Yup, she sounds just like the nasty head of the Secret Police, Fairy Hardcastle, in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength.

229 posted on 05/07/2003 8:04:19 PM PDT by AnAmericanMother (. . . there is nothing new under the sun.)
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To: Dead Dog

230 posted on 05/07/2003 8:05:16 PM PDT by F-117A
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To: MEG33
Thanks.

Miss Thing hates us. She wants to rant.

That's ok. I hate her type just as much as she hates us and I can rant right back at 'em.
231 posted on 05/07/2003 8:08:51 PM PDT by Prodigal Son
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To: goldstategop
She can help herself by staying out of the greatest country on earth.
I care not what she feels or thinks.
232 posted on 05/07/2003 8:19:30 PM PDT by fabriclady
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To: Prodigal Son
I wonder if she realizes she makes me feel better about America!
233 posted on 05/07/2003 8:21:55 PM PDT by MEG33
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To: Leisler
Everyone BACK-OFF!! We are proud of her and she is the HOTTEST, sweetest little lefty ever born here in AR. I'd give my left something to be hers.
234 posted on 05/07/2003 8:27:52 PM PDT by slasher82
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To: dighton
Arf.
235 posted on 05/07/2003 8:34:35 PM PDT by moyden2000
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To: MEG33
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a person like Ms Drabble to acknowledge any other world view than the one to which she has sold her soul. She said it herself, she's diseased with her own hate. It's an affliction of the mind and spirit and it's terminal.
236 posted on 05/07/2003 8:38:18 PM PDT by Prodigal Son
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To: Leisler
Bill Clinton's true soul mate. Care for a "stogie"?
237 posted on 05/07/2003 8:45:35 PM PDT by slasher82
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To: Leisler
Oh geez, margie,

As old as you look, obviously, you've never experienced the ultimate womanly "feeling" by a man, have you. No wonder you are so frustrated and full of self pity. Poor thing, bless your wittle America loathing heart.......... NOT!!
238 posted on 05/07/2003 8:51:46 PM PDT by Chong (God Bless and Protect our Troops! God Bless our Commander-In-Chief!)
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To: Happygal; All; Pukka Puck
She's a nutcase, clearly.

But what's a "conservative" newspaper like the Telegraph giving space to such drivel?

I suspect it's because even among so-called conservative Brits there's a huge readership for anti-Americanism.

Really, the Telegraph should tout itself as the conservative/socialist newspaper.....not just as a "conservative" newspaper.
239 posted on 05/07/2003 8:54:40 PM PDT by WaterDragon (Only America has the moral authority and the resolve to lead the world in the 21st Century.)
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To: Prodigal Son
I never expect a lefty to be deterred by the facts.I rather enjoy that her bile is exposed.
240 posted on 05/07/2003 8:59:50 PM PDT by MEG33
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