I've been quiet about all this Operation Clark County nonsense
because other people have expressed my concerns better than I could
have. However, the hullabaloo was raised before the letters---from
non-celebrity Brits---were actually printed. It was the idea of the
project that got most people going. I wanted to see what these
international dissenters were actually going to say for themselves.So,
knowing they were going to excerpt them today, I hopped on over to the The Guardian's website to see what they had to say.
Nothing really new, as it turns out.
A few tasty tidbits:
{...}"Please, change the world by changing the man in the
White House."
{...}"I have loved America ever since, and it is because of this love,
that I write to you today. Because I'm saddened to what is happening to
America's image abroad and the hatred I see all around me."
{...}"The unity so prominent in the days after 9/11 is now shattered, a
wealth of sympathy squandered as our governments continue to lie and
justify the wholly unjust crimes we have committed. World anger is
rising."
{...} "I started working back in the UK in 2000. With the distance that
comes from separation, I would return to the US and feel the difference
in attitudes following the calamitous events of the destruction of the
World Trade Centre in New York. It was not 9/11 that changed the
American outlook however. I believe that it was the response to 9/11 by
its leadership that has caused this bleakness to manifest itself in the
American consciousness. The war on terrorism and the climate of fear
generated from the Office of Homeland Security were used to subvert
American awareness and enabled the Bush-led Republican government to
pursue the war in Iraq without opposition from within. This is why I am
writing to you to ask for your help in turning the tide. I truly
believe that we all cannot afford another four years of Mr Bush being
in power. I have never done anything like this before and I, myself,
might resent the intrusion in receiving a letter like this. Forgive me,
then, please. My motivation is not driven by anyone else or by a
pressure group, I am simply someone who misses the America that I knew
and loved."
{...} I am writing to you in the hope that it may encourage you to use
your vote in the forthcoming presidential election. But, why would I do
this? The answer is simple, because yes, although it is a very strange
thing to do, it will help me clear my own conscience with respect to
the war in Iraq. You see I am one of those who, when the protests were
made in London, thought about it and did not take part. I was fairly
sure at the time that the war was a bad idea, but I also believed that
Iraq probably did have weapons of mass destruction, and although it was
not an immediate threat it probably could become one at short notice.
What I believe now is very different. I am now prepared to stand up and
be counted. I hope that you will feel the same. {...}
Never mind that it doesn't appear that The Guardian,
if it was truly a source of independent thought it claims to be, might
have published letters that endorsed Bush, just to present a different
point of view. They didn't, yet that's not really important. What is important about these letter writers and The Guardian itself is that they are stuck in a 9/10---a September 10, 2000---mindset.
Remember those halycon days that led up to the 2000 Presidential
Election? When Bill Clinton was still in charge. Where Al Gore was in
lead and was seemingly unstoppable? Where George W. Bush didn't want to
have a thing to do with nation building? Remember when we didn't have a
deficit, but rather a surplus? Ah, those were the good old days to the
Europeans. Yet life has changed for Americans in the past four years,
and the Europeans are forgetting about this, or rather are coopting
this change into the views they held back then. The thing that
Americans are most concerned about, what is shaping most American
opinions of this election--- 9/11---has very little to do with
European-held opinions about this election a other than that it
provides Bush dissenters with the line: we squandered the goodwill of the world.
So, what's the point of all of this? This isn't about choosing a leader
who, Europeans feel, will make the world safer. This isn't a referendum
on the global War on Terror or the War in Iraq. This isn't about Kerry
being a viable alternative to Bush. For them, this election is about
taking America back to a time when America was liked.
This is about taking America back to the year 2000. Not unlike some disaffected Americans, the Europeans want a do-over.
Which means dumping George W. Bush.
They don't like the guy in office. It's really quite simple. They never liked the guy in office; they think he stole
the election from Al Gore. They think he's uneducated because he
occasionally mangles the language. They think he's unreasonable in that
he puts America's interests first, and the UN's second. They think he's
unenlightened because he doesn't brownnose like Chirac does. They think
he's the antithesis of Clinton, who was well loved and highly admired
by those Euro elites. Life was good for Europe under Clinton---where
his sexual activities were looked upon favorably---why wouldn't they
look upon those days in the '90's through rose colored glasses? They
seem to think that if we go back to the policies of the Clinton
Administration, well, none of the bad stuff, like what happened on
9/11, would ever happen again. If they could make the claim that 9/11
happened because Bush was in office, they would. After all, everything
that happened in the Bush administration before 9/11 wasn't exactly the
height of popular European thinking, was it? Anyone remember the Kyoto
fallout of that summer, and how Bush paid the price for the Senate's
rejection of that treaty? What about Bush's dumping of the ABT treaty
so we could have that magnificent Missile Defense System? Boy, that was
popular, wasn't it? Remember the throngs of globalizations protestors
at the G-8 summit in Genoa who burned Bush in effigy? The truth of the
matter is that nobody in Europe liked us before 9/11. And they most
assuredly don't like us now. Yet, the crux of their arguments is that
if John Kerry were elected president, America would be liked
abroad and that's all that really matters, isn't it? Because, as their
logic tracks, if America was liked no one would want to attack her,
would they?
What Europeans fail to realize is that this is not a goddamn popularity
contest. It's an election that will, to put it quite bluntly, decide
whether we will bow to the terrorists or if we will keep on fighting
them. I can qualify and say that I'm not really all that fond of
President Bush's policies. I think he's spending too much money and
that he panders to social conservatives too much. I am more a
libertarian than a Republican. But if I qualify, I must also add that I
truly believe that he's the guy I have to vote for, not only because I
agree wholeheartedly with his stance on global terrorism, because the
Democrats just don't get it.
They don't get that some of us think socialism is a bad, and failed,
idea. Yet they push on with their notions of class warfare, because
they'll benefit from the fallout. They don't understand that you're
responsible for your own level of success in life and that there is no
such thing as a government safety net. They do not comprehend that
America is more about following a dream than being stuck in one union
job all of your life. They do not get that terrorists do not play by
UN-approved rules. They think law enforcement is the best way to rid
ourselves of this problem. But mostly, I believe it comes down to the
fact that the Democrats just don't understand that America, in all of
her flawed essence, is not about following the safe path. America is
about taking the bold, brave path that might lead to doom, or might
lead to glory---one simply never knows. America is about taking the
Evil Kneival jump over forty junked cars. America is the breath held in
suspension, wondering and waiting and having no freakin' clue about the
outcome. America is not
about playing it safe. But most importantly, America is not about doing
what everyone else thinks is the right thing, particularly when history
tells us it would be disastrous to take any other path than the one we
are following, no matter how unpopular it might make us.
Europeans don't get this. Everything they have are things that
conservative Americans loathe. They have universal health care. We have
health insurance. They have what, seems to me at least, is universal,
unlimited welfare when they don't have a job. We have sixteen weeks of
unemployment and then the benefits run out. They have pensions. We have
retirement plans. They have six weeks off a year. We're lucky if we get
two weeks after a year's probationary employment. They have a
thirty-some-hour-a-week workweek. We work at least, if not more, than
forty-hours a week. They are pampered by their governments from cradle
to grave. We are not. Their tax rates take a goodly amount of a
person's income to pay for all this goodness. We balk if our effective
tax rates shoot higher than thirty percent---for all of our taxes.
They've taken the responsibility for taking care of oneself away from
the individual and placed that burden on the state. The only reason I
can think of for doing this is because they don't have faith in their
individual citizen's abilities to care of themselves and to plan for
their futures. They're not able enough. Europeans believe their
governments are the answer; their futures are dependent upon the state
being just that, so they'd best support and put their faith in their
governments. Which, of course, boils over into support for
international organizations, like the UN, because there is order and
support to be found there. Or so they think. America, however, was
founded on the precept that the state was not something to be trusted.
Faith will only be given when it is shown. We are two fundamentally
different creatures. This is why I think America, particularly
Conservative America, baffles them. We want to take care of ourselves
because, as we see it, government only mucks up the works; they want
their governments to take care of them. So, they rationalize, if we
encourage Americans to ditch the man in charge, America will be more
like them and life will be comfortable
again. Wrong.
Because of 9/11. The sleeping tiger that is America was rudely waked.
Following our great tradition of self-reliance, we see the War on
Terror as a situation that can be solved. It's an opportunity that can
be exploited for the good of all. We're looking for the root causes.
We're trying to solve the problems that breed hijackers who take the
lives of innocent civilians. We're not hiding, because that's what
we've done in the past and obviously it didn't work. But Europeans
don't buy this for one simple reason: that it's George W. Bush who's
doing the work. If it was Bill Clinton it would be a different story,
wouldn't it? Europeans seem to think that if there was an
administration in place in Washington that they could trust;
that held similar values to its own, all would be right. And they make
all of these statements while simultaneously, obliviously, and very,
very wrongly, placing the blame for 9/11 on the shoulders of Democracy.
If you would just stop pissing people off, you'd be liked again.
Well, like the average sixth grader, America has two options: they can
throw aside their principles and be popular, or they can stick with who
they are and what they know to be right and be unpopular, yet better
off in the long run.