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 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
America Watches Its Stars Wane and Its Stripes Fade
 Philippe Grangereau - Libération
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 |  | Not everyone can love us, but we also can't have everyone in the world hating us either.
- Hillary Clinton |  | |
The Afghan and Iraqi conflicts have contributed to tarnishing the image of Washington, which begins to worry about that fact.
The American athletes came back very shook-up from Brazil, where they had participated in the Pan-American Games, last week's Chicago Tribune noted gravely. They suffered boos and catcalls during the opening ceremony, "USA Go to Hell" during a volleyball match with the Cuban team, and, to top it all off, enthusiastic applause from the crowd when an American gymnast had the misfortune of falling ... This episode is not the last manifestation of an ever more caustic anti-Americanism.
Decadence
A study entitled "Global Malaise" the Pew Research Center completed in 47 countries in June emphasizes that "for the last five years, the image of the United States has been tarnished in most countries in the world - and has significantly deteriorated among the United States's traditional allies in the Americas, the Middle East and elsewhere." Turkey established a record, with an 83% disapproval level. In France, 76% of the people polled disapprove of "American ideas of democracy," according to Pew, which polled 45,000 people in total. Nearly similar scores were registered in Germany, Spain and Pakistan. Black Africa alone has an overall positive vision of the United States and there are few countries that do not revel in the humiliation the superpower has undergone in Iraq.
This distrust of the United States and its president worries Americans themselves. Especially in the Democratic Party, which has continued to talk about it the last few weeks. Barack Obama, candidate for the 2008 presidential candidacy, deplores that the American ideal of freedom should be "tragically associated by many around the world with war, torture, and regime change by force." "Not so long ago, Venezuelan and Indonesian farmers put pictures of John F. Kennedy up on the walls of their houses," he laments, assuring that "that kind of America is once again" possible. "Not everyone can love us, but we also can't have everyone in the world hating us either," candidate Hillary Clinton reminded a supporter who made the point that the United States "is no longer the global power it once was."
We are, in fact, far from the American omnipotence of the last decade when, in 1992, George H. Bush (the father) declared that "a world once divided into two armed camps now recognizes only one preeminent power, the United States of America." "And it looks at us without fear, since the world trusts us [...], for it knows what we do is right," he added. Distant also is the supremacy still proudly heralded in 2002 by his son, George W. Bush, who asserted that "the United States finds itself in a position of unprecedented military strength, allied to great political and economic influence." The American giant had just then, legally, along with its allies, overthrown the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and seemed invincible. Moreover, the country was then draped in the extraordinary capital of sympathy that resulted from the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The consequences of the fiasco of the 2003 Iraq invasion, are making America question itself today. "Are We Rome?" asks journalist Cullen Murphy in the title of his recent book. He compares the United States to the Roman Empire of the Fifth Century and wonders whether this contemporary "center of the world" is not also heading for an upcoming fall. He sees "decadence" in the growing gap between rich and poor and in the incompetence of a government that is arrogant to boot.
"Breaking Point"
Historical analogies have their limits, but the Washington city-empire seems to be well and truly denuded of most of its legitimacy in the eyes of the world. "The overextension of financial and military resources," a consequence of the strategy the White House has followed in its "War against Terror," now considerably limits the United States' ability to present itself as a credible threat to its enemies, who have become brazen as a result, worried academician Samantha Power in last week's New York Times.
"With too-few men and allies, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained the Pentagon's resources to the breaking point and raise the specter of a possible defeat in the two conflicts. [...] Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have significantly harmed America's image abroad, [...] the government appears more and more incompetent, [...] almost nothing is being done about the threats of global warming, the crisis in the national health care system or to reduce the deficit ..." This catalogue of woe was drawn up in July by Leon Panetta, who was White House chief of staff during Bill Clinton's presidency.
Like many other Americans, Panetta no longer counts on George W. Bush and puts all his hopes for recovery in the election of a new president. Other Americans do also, since 65% of them now disapprove of their president's actions. |
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