Anti-American Sentiment

By Russell Shaw
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 4/17/03)

"Massacro a Bagdad" — Massacre in Baghdad. The banner headline seemed to scream at me from a newsstand in Rome's Fiumicino Airport.

The story, in the Italian daily La Repubblica, recounted a tragic incident the day before. An explosion had killed more than 50 people in a Baghdad market. The cause was unclear. An erring missile? American? Iraqi? Who could say? But for this traveler at least, the implicit message was plain: "There go the Americans again!"

These aren't easy days for Americans abroad. There are moments when the hostility to U.S. policy — and, sometimes, to the United States itself — is thick enough to cut with a knife. "If anything could turn me into a supporter of this war," I found myself thinking during my stay in Rome, "it would be some of the things I've heard over here opposing it."

Herewith a couple of illustrations of the confusions I encountered on the part of non-Americans.

A British prelate expressed hearty regret that President Bush is such a "cynical" man. On the contrary, I said, it's just the reverse. The President's critics fault him on various grounds — idealism, lack of experience in foreign affairs, an exaggerated sense of mission — but these are very far removed from cynicism.

An African priest remarked that Colin Powell is a hero in Africa, an example of how high an African-American man can rise in the U.S. I asked: What about Condoleeza Rice? The National Security Advisor is a "villain" back home, he replied. Why? Because, he explained, she's a Republican.

Plainly she is. Just like Secretary of State Powell. Rice also is just as much an African-American as he. Evidently the difference for the Africans this priest spoke of lies in the perception of Rice as an enthusiastic backer of the war and Powell as reluctant at best. Race and party affiliation in reality are beside the point. It's Iraq that counts.

A statement from a Geneva-based group called the International Union of the Catholic Press (UCIP) exemplifies one-sidedness from a church-related source.

It expressed concern that the war would have results like the death and injury of innocent persons, "growth of hatred, intolerance and misunderstanding among peoples," and a mysterious something called "destruction of world heritage." With the exception of the latter (what is it?), these are deplorable consequences indeed.

But the UCIP statement spoke only of the bad results of going to war, while ignoring possible bad results of not doing that — results the Bush administration often spoke of: rewarding a vicious regime for flouting U.N. resolutions calling on it to disarm, the danger that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would be used in new acts of terrorism, the continued brutalization of Iraq.

Like it or not, this debate has two sides. The International Union of the Catholic Press acknowledged only one.

Anti-Americanism has marked much foreign reaction to the war. Unfortunately, that's true even of things said by some Vatican officials. Pope John Paul II expressed his opposition without bashing the U.S., but not everyone around him was so careful.

This deep-rooted antipathy to the United States now showing its face around the world helps explain why, after decades of trying and huge expenditures, America's side on controversial issues is not heard in many places. The Iraq war might never have been popular; it may not have deserved to be. But the deep-rooted hostility to the United States displayed in this crisis by so many non-Americans is alarming. When the shooting stops, we need to ask ourselves where it comes from.

Shaw is a freelance writer from Washington, D.C.

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