Like in this post, I am going to critique a frequent Slate contributor on her view of Europe's role in and perspective of the American ordeal in Iraq, and what it should be. A while back, I critisized Anne Applebaum for wanting to lay blame for the 'lack of pressure' on North Korea on China and how she cavalierly proposed options for China that would hurt them and the situation in both Koreas (i.e. the entire region). It seemed she was writing from a narrow view, which surprises me because she wrote an exceptional book: Gulag: A History.
This time, I have a smaller bone to pick with Ms. Applebaum's latest article. Number one, maybe I am out of the loop, but what is this "Old Europe" she constantly talks about? Is it Western Europe, because there are plenty of British and other peoples criticizing US policy too. Number two, it is only typical to hear the 'don't critisize, help out!' babble, and this article, with a subtitle of "A New Year's resolution for Europe: Less carping, more helping.", is a good example of that mentality.
She quotes German and French newspapers in her introduction, while they are pretty muich doing their jobs: reporing the news. The newspapers are not supposed to help out, that is not their jobs! She then mixes up what is on the cover of an array of French and German newspapers with the various perspectives European people have of Iraq — if someone did have another plan or idea, it would probably not be on the front page but the op-ed page. As if American papers did not have the --. It is not as much gloating as it is pointing out the fairly obvious about the Bush administration and its plan for Iraq.
On the day James Baker's Iraq Study Group report was published, I gritted my teeth and waited for the well-earned, long-awaited Franco-German "Old European" gloat to begin. I didn't have to wait long. "America Faces Up to the Iraq Disaster" read a headline in Der Spiegel. In the patronizing tones of a senior doctor, Le Monde diagnosed the "political feverishness" gripping Washington in Baker's wake. Süddeutsche Zeitung said the report "stripped Bush of his authority," although Le Figaro opined that nothing Baker proposed could improve the "catastrophic state" of Iraq anyway.
And then, for two weeks … silence. If there are politicians, academics, or journalists anywhere in Germany and France who have better ideas about how to improve the catastrophic state of Iraq, they aren't talking very loudly. There is no question that America's credibility has been undermined by the Iraq war in "Old Europe" as everywhere else. There is no question that America's reputation for competence has been destroyed. But that doesn't mean there are dozens of eager candidates, or even one eager candidate, clamoring to replace us.
In her article, Applebaum also hits a nerve with me when she treats "Old Europe" as if it was one group of people — similar, but much more generalizing, to the steriotypes people put on [so-called] Hollywood-types and African Americans in the US.
Not everyone should have to help everyone else when they are in the doldrums, although it would be nice (and utopian), it is not feasible and is selfish for a country like the US to be already plenty self-centered and expect the whole world to rush to its aid when it makes a mistake. Nor would the US allow help... remember the ensuing aid offers following Hurricane Katrina? The Cold War is over, and no one really gets anything for helping America either, especially when the US is wrong.
A more cold, but still down-to-earth, point against Applebaum would be: why should Europe have to painstaking help fix something it did not cause? The US started the Iraq war and knowingly damaged its reputation for it, why should an unrelated third party swoop to unappreciated assistance?
Presumably, these are the same optimists who used to believe that a Franco-German-British diplomatic team could persuade Iran to stop conducting nuclear-weapons research. Presumably, they didn't notice that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last week—not, perhaps, the clearest signal that he wants to make friends with bien pensants Europeans—or that French President Jacques Chirac recently declared that his views on Syria exactly matched those of his U.S. counterpart.Isn't the cynicism she expresses in the above quote the same kind of stuff she is no-noing Europe for reporting, or, in her view, expressing and "patronizing"?
Maybe the Old Europeans will find inspiration to support and contribute further to the alliance, diplomatically and ideologically, if not militarily.This is the point where she looses me and talks about NATO — which has basically nothing to do with Iraq.
Applebaum seems to be very supportive of alliances favouring one side, the United States, which, in her perfect world, would make the US like the rock star or popular student and Europe like the US's groupies or staunch followers. She does not make any mention of the United Nations in her article, also something to think about.
Characterizing France and German as the faces of Europe; newspaper headlines as op-ed pieces; and thinking that everyone should always come to the aid of the US while contradicting herself in her own patronizing of Europe are what makes this and the previous article of Ms. Applebaum's I critiqued lackluster insight. As I said in my last Applebaum critique:
she needs to work on her logic in the delicate sphere of international politics, governmental and regional stability, and foreign relations.
Happy holidays everyone.
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