From the Foreign Affairs thread Message 17965822 excellent Jerusalem Post article explaining the difference between the real world of truth & reason and the fantasy world of the American press regarding Dub'ya's looking for allies in Europe........jj
jpost.com
BRET STEPHENS'S EYES ABROAD: Consulting the 'allies'
By BRET STEPHENS
It has been almost a quarter-century since the German government of Helmut Schmidt, a Social Democrat, agreed
to the deployment of US cruise and Pershing missiles in Germany in the face of Soviet deployment of the SS-20.
And it's been almost 20 years since the Reagan administration deployed those missiles, having won the approval of
the governments of Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand, Bettino Craxi, and Margaret Thatcher.
Looking back, what we remember from those days are the mass protests at Greenham Common, the "die-ins" in
West Germany, the wise men's warnings of threats to the arms-control process, the urgings of clergymen and
scientists to "refuse the cruise." We remember them because of the non-stop attention the protesters enjoyed in the
media.
The German Bundestag may have approved the missiles by a 286-226 margin, reflecting a solid democratic
consensus. But what casual consumer of news in those days would have known it? More likely, he would have
been led to the conclusion that the Pershing and cruise deployments were accomplished against European wishes,
much in the manner in which the Soviet Union exercised dominion over the Eastern Bloc.
Were the nuclear-freeze protests really the biggest story to come out of Europe in the early 1980s? Certainly they
could not be ignored. But no less remarkable was the emergence of a crop of West European leaders, of the Left
as well as the Right, who bucked the cliches of a decade to support the muscular and controversial American line.
What was their thinking? How did they carry the day politically? These must be questions for historians to address,
as the media of the day largely failed to do so.
IT IS HARDLY a secret that biased media coverage is rarely a matter of misquotation or overt misrepresentation.
Media bias is usually a product of story selection, the tone of the first paragraph, the omission or introduction of
context, the choice of subjects, of focus, of quotations, the arrangement of contrasting views, the last line.
Today, the American media are all but falling over themselves reporting current European opposition much of it
high-level this time to US administration plans to invade Iraq.
Thursday, The New York Times gave prominent coverage to an interview with German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder. Headline: "German Leader's Warning: War Plan Is Huge Mistake." Earlier, the Times gave coveted
op-ed space to Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who took the view that "if President Bush goes ahead with a war lacking the
support even of the British government, it would highlight his unilateralism in the most dramatic way."
And in perhaps the lengthiest exercise yet in elaborating the new trans-Atlantic divide, Glenn Kessler of The
Washington Post noted that "for many foreign officials... the Bush administration, with its unyielding focus on the
war on terrorism and the primacy of US interests, increasingly places little stock in the needs and opinions of other
nations."
"European officials say they feel adrift and increasingly estranged from US policy, especially on the Middle East and
the environment," writes Kessler. "Latin Americans say they have been ignored despite the region's growing
financial woes.
Officials in Japan and South Korea say they aren't sure whether they matter much to the United States anymore.
US relations with China and Russia have improved, but appear to have reached an uncomfortable impasse. Arabs
express despair that US policy in the Middle East has swung sharply in favor of Israel."
To its credit, Kessler's piece is impressively well documented. It also gives space to National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who offers the view that European carping has
its roots in envy of American power.
Yet there is much that is missing from the article. For example, Kessler cites Chris Patten, the external relations
commissioner for the European Union and recently a vocal critic of the Bush administration. But he makes no
mention of Javier Solana, the EU's de facto foreign policy chief, who is on record saying: "I cannot conceive of a
really important strategic issue on which the US and Europe will not be together."
The article also cites sources close to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who say that the prime minister "feels no
real rapport with Bush." Yet two days after Kessler's piece appeared, Blair went public in his support for the
administration, saying that much of the recent criticism of the US "was just straightforward anti-Americanism" and
that media depictions of Bush were "a parody of the George Bush that I know and work with."
Then, too, Kessler missed the results of a poll released earlier this week, from the German Marshall Fund, on
European attitudes toward US foreign policy. In a survey of 6,001 Europeans from Britain, France, Germany,
Poland, Italy, and the Netherlands, the GMF found that only 25% of respondents are flatly opposed to an invasion
of Iraq. By contrast, 60% favored war, provided the US secure acquiescence from allies and the United Nations,
while 65% believe that international terrorism is the greatest threat to their national interests.
"Despite recent press reports of rising anti-Americanism in Europe and an impending trans-Atlantic split," wrote the
poll's authors, "at the public level, Europeans are in broad agreement when it comes to the war on terrorism, Iraq,
and a host of other international issues."
In Kessler's defense, publication of the polls results arrived a couple of days after his story, so he cannot be blamed
for ignoring it. Yet nowhere in Kessler's story is the German Marshall Fund mentioned, a strange omission given the
central role it plays in trans-Atlantic relations. More importantly, Kessler plainly failed to capture important aspects
of European attitudes that should have been evident even without prior knowledge of the poll's results. As a result,
his article, carefully sourced as it was, offers at best an incomplete picture of European views.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Let's venture a guess.
In June of last year, I covered Bush's first trip to Europe for The Wall Street Journal. In the run-up to Bush's arrival,
the pages of both European and American newspapers were filled with predictions of the massive demonstrations
he would encounter, of the disdain his political counterparts felt for him, and of the new tide of anti-Americanism
sweeping the continent on account of his rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
"Across Europe," wrote Suzanne Daley of The New York Times, "there is little love for America's new president
and a growing perception that the United States, under his leadership, is looking out only for itself these days,
polluting the skies, breaking treaties, and flirting with new arms races.... Europeans loot at America and see a harsh
society, with far too many have-nots."
Yet something very different happened on Bush's trip. There were protests, in Madrid and in Brussels and in
Gothenburg. But turnout was remarkably small: a few thousand in Madrid, less than 1,000 in Brussels, a couple of
thousand in Gothenburg. By contrast, the EU summit taking place at the same time elicited much larger and more
violent demonstrations. It was the euro, not Bush, that elicited the greatest antipathy among European radicals.
Meanwhile, the president, expected to fumble at every turn, did passably well with his counterparts in Western
Europe, earned accolades in Poland, and set the foundations for a strategic partnership with Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
None of this was expected by the media, largely because it was not desired. A press corps that had expended
much ink telling readers how unpopular Bush was in Europe naturally wanted to see its ideas confirmed. And for
generations, a certain segment of America has looked to Europe as a source of wisdom and as an edifying
counterpoint to American crassness Greece to America's Rome.
So, when in March of last year Bush flatly rejected the Kyoto Protocol, the US media went into overdrive reporting
Europe's horrified reaction, never mind that the US Senate had rejected the treaty by a margin of 97-0. Similarly,
much was made in the US press of European opposition to the administration's rejection of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, with forecasts that it would initiate a new arms race. But this was largely forgotten a year later, when
Bush went to Moscow to sign the largest arms-control treaty ever, bringing down the nuclear arsenals of each
country by two-thirds.
Put another way, the media play up European views on US policy to serve as a proxy for their own, at least when
the policies they oppose are popular among Americans. "W. is President Primate," wrote Times columnist Maureen
Dowd. "W.'s second trip to Europe reinforced his hollow hubris. He glad-handed the European leaders even as he
thumbed his nose at their treaties." This may be a personal view, but it is also a fairly accurate expression of the
media zeitgeist.
WHETHER IT MAKES sense for the US administration to consult with its allies, and how far that consultation
should go, is a matter of reasonable debate. At a minimum, it ought to be remembered that when, in 1993,
secretary of state Warren Christopher consulted European leaders on the subject of Bosnia, he came home with a
prescription for inaction. In retrospect, and tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths later, perhaps that wasn't Mr.
Christopher's finest hour.
Today, the subject is Iraq, and prominent US media outlets, such as the Times, have been banging the drums for
inaction in their editorials, citing their own news reports of European views as evidence that war would crack the
Atlantic alliance and thus threaten the overall war on terror. It's a view that may yet carry the day. Perhaps if a more
complete picture of the European mind were on offer, a different conclusion might be reached.
jpost.com. |
