Saddam 8.9 : 83.3 Bush .... Bush is the winner!

In Europe, Bush is repeatedly voted "Hitler of the year"!
OK, I am sorry ... let's call him "Napoleon of the year!"

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Europe urges restraint, but Bush knows best

January 26, 2003

By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor


NEW YORK -- Time's European edition asked its readers what nation posed the greatest threat to world peace. Of the 268,000 respondents (as of this writing), 7.8% replied North Korea, 8.9% named Iraq and a shocking 83.3% said the United States. Good work, President Bush.

The Time poll mirrors feeling around the globe, with the exceptions of Israel and Britain. American neo-conservatives, however, will dismiss this poll as just another example of European wimpiness, irrelevance and anti-American prejudice. So will George Bush and his hawkish entourage, who have made it plain they don't care what the rest of the world thinks so long as America and Israel get their way.

Last week, France's able foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, warned his nation would delay, or might even veto, efforts by the Bush administration to strong-arm the UN Security Council into a rushed war vote against Iraq. Germany, China and Russia backed France.

American right wingers harbour particular venom for France. Americans expect their allies to be obedient. While Washington constantly hectors Europe to take more "international responsibility", Europeans are not expected to disagree with American policy. To Americans, France often appears downright insubordinate. Ever since Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Paris has refused to take orders or accept being a junior ally of the U.S.

Europeans see the Mideast very differently from North Americans, thanks to their long experience in the region, and their media, which provides far more accurate, balanced and diverse reporting on the region than do ours.

Americans accuse the French of arrogance, rudeness and illusions of grandeur, which is often true. The French rightly accuse American politicians - epitomized for Europeans by President Bush - of being arrogant and ignorant, as well as loud, uncultured, impatient and dreadfully lacking in those two fundamentals of civilized education: geography and history. French intellectuals warn American TV and movies are spreading "cretinization" to Europe's youth, a charge easily confirmed by an evening's viewing of North American television.

American neo-conservatives know Europeans sneer at them as dangerous ideological crackpots, the 2003 version of 1930s militant Marxists. The neo-con's riposte (oops, a French word) "We saved you in two world wars. Now we have to do it again. You're no better than those wimpy, socialist Canadians."

Foolish intervention

These chest-thumpers are unaware that without France's military intervention in the War of Independence, there would be no United States. Or that Germany was effectively defeated in 1917 by Britain and France when the U.S. foolishly intervened, thus preventing a fair, negotiated peace that would have prevented the evil Treaty of Versailles, the Bolshevik Revolution, Adolf Hitler and World War II.

Most Americans believe their nation alone defeated Germany in World War II. Not so. Stalin's Soviet Union defeated the Third Reich, destroying 100 German divisions in titanic battles on the Eastern front that made D-Day seem a minor battle. By the time U.S. forces landed in Europe, Germany was almost defeated, without a navy, air force or oil.

Smirking Gallophobes love to revile the French for being faint-hearted fighters in World War II. But France lost 210,000 dead fighting the mighty Germans. The Maginot Line worked as planned, contrary to popular belief. America's great fortress, Corregidor, failed miserably.

America lost 292,000 dead in the war, including both the European and Pacific Theatres, where the U.S. totally and brilliantly defeated Japan. Poland lost more soldiers than America, 320,000; even unwarlike Romania lost 300,000 men.

Europe, including the USSR, lost at least 13 million soldiers and 25 million civilians killed in World War II. When Russia opens its secret files, the numbers may soar. "Wimpish" Europeans know something more than Americans about the cost of war. Take the damage of 9/11 and multiply it 1,500 times and you get a taste of the devastation caused by World War II.

Europeans still have fresh memories of their brutal, futile colonial wars. America, about to embark in Iraq on its first large-scale colonial adventure since it annexed Cuba and the Philippines in 1899, has forgotten, and seems fated to relearn, the cost of empire.

By and large, Europeans like and admire Americans, as do most people around the globe. There are some chronic America-haters in Britain and France, to be sure, on both right and left, but in general Europeans are opposed to the unilateralist, aggressive policies of the Bush White House, not to America. But it's also plain, Bush's thirst for war and oil are cultivating strong new strains of anti-Americanism.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration, obsessed to the point of psychosis with Iraq, refuses to heed the cautions of its old European friends, listening only to exhortations of Israel's far right wing, whose American supporters now dominate the Pentagon and National Security Council. The White House won't listen either to the sensible advice of Israel's far-sighted Labour party leader, Amram Mitzna, or to its Arab allies.

President Bush claims he is about to wage war for America's security. But the rest of the world scoffs at this claim, knowing his true objective is oil. By generating ever increasing antipathy towards the U.S., the Goliath-like Bush administration is actually undermining the security of the U.S. and of Americans abroad.

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jan26.html
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