AMERICAN FUTURE

. . . that President Reagan said:

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Only 29 months later, the Wall fell. I will never forget watching Tom Brokaw’s report from the scene. I was 15 when the Wall went up and, like (almost?) everyone else, I thought it would be there forever.

The beginning:

The end:

Two weeks ago, I posted on an article by Spiegel Online’s Berlin bureau chief in which he wrote that “Anti-Americanism is the wonder drug of German politics.” Two days ago, on the eve of Chancellor Merkel’s trip to Washington, Spiegel had this to say:

. . . Merkel has reoriented Germany away from Russia and toward the United States . . . She sees America as “a force that has brought freedom to the peoples of the world” . . . [She] wants to expand Germany’s close ties with the United States and is on the verge of making a pact with America the cornerstone of her foreign policy.

Spiegel isn’t alone in changing the tone of its coverage of America. A recent article in Die Zeit translated from the German by Davids Medienkritik and titled “The World’s Bellyache” avers that

. . . something potentially universal, a form of worldwide bellyaching in varying strengths, is to be seen in the criticism of the United States. Anti-Americanism is a new global ideology, the “Leitkultur” for protest against prevailing conditions, just as it was for decades for the various forms of Socialism . . . There is something pathological to the real anti-Americanism loaded with resentments. Historian and documenter of ideas Dan Diner speaks of a “narcissistic disease tied together with the assertion of the modern.”

The article then talks about the attitudinal differences that separate (using Rumsfeld’s terminology) “Old Europe” and “New Europe”:

. . . the middle Europeans, who recently ran away from the Soviet empire . . . are not interested in the French or German criticism of America. For many Poles it is no cultural scandal that the United States is religious and patriotic, they are themselves. In the Czech Republic they haven’t forgotten that the former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright was born in Prague and found refuge in America; The image of Bill Clinton, who visited Vaclav Havel in a Prague jazz club and played the saxophone, has not disappeared. The Iraq War and George W. Bush are also no longer popular in Poland or the Czech Republic, but the disappointment did not initially shake the fundamental trust. It is exactly the opposite in the other half of the once divided world, and especially so among earlier especially close allies such as those in Germany, Turkey or South Korea. There America is practically just the superpower that has fallen to the outer edges after 9/11 and has largely used up the thanks for its assistance in the Cold War . . . This difference in perceptions is driving Europe and the Atlantic alliance apart, and it is not at all easy to say, who is right.

It’s refreshing, to say the least, that the German MSM is now willing to talk about us without engaging in anti-American diatribes.

Der Spiegel recently posted an article (“Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs“) citing the results of a recent poll commissioned by Stern magazine. By a margin of 48 percent to 31 percent, Germans believe that the U.S. is more dangerous than is Iran. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, 57 percent consider the U.S. to be the greater danger.

As has been amply documented by Davids Medienkritik, Der Spiegel (along with most of the German mass media) has long been sharply critical of the Bush Administration for a wide variety of sins, ranging from its dismissal of the Kyoto Treaty to its opposition to the International Criminal Court to its prosecution of the War on Terror to its invasion of Iraq.

This makes the tone and content of the recent article all the more interesting. Rather than blaming the German media (itself included), Der Spiegel asserts that the German “political establishment” is “largely responsible for this wave of anti-Americanism.” For years, German foreign ministers “fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a ‘critical dialogue’ between Europe and Iran.”

The article was penned by Spiegel Online’s Berlin bureau chief, a position I presume to be of some importance and authority. He casts some heavy stones:

For us Germans, the Americans are either too fat or too obsessed with exercise, too prudish or too pornographic, too religious or too nihilistic. In terms of history and foreign policy, the Americans have either been too isolationist or too imperialistic. They simply go ahead and invade foreign countries (something we Germans, of course, would never do) and then abandon them, the way they did in Vietnam and will soon do in Iraq.

Worst of all, the Americans won the war in 1945. (Well, with German help, of course—from Einstein and his ilk.) There are some Germans who will never forgive the Americans for VE Day, when they defeated Hitler. After all, Nazism was just an accident, whereas Americans are inherently evil. Just look at President Bush, the man who, as some of SPIEGEL ONLINE’s readers steadfastly believe, “is worse than Hitler.” Now that gives us a chance to kill two birds with one stone. If Bush is the new Hitler, then we Germans have finally unloaded the Führer on to someone else . . .

Anti-Americanism is the wonder drug of German politics. If no one believes what you’re saying, take a swing at the Yanks and you’ll be shooting your way back up to the top of the opinion polls in no time. And on the practical side, you can be the head of the Social Democratic Party and endear yourself to the party’s hardcore with a load of anti-American nonsense, and still get invited back to Washington—just look at Gerhard Schröder. In fact, you could, like leading German politicians in the debate over the planned American missile shield in Europe, be accused of having “an almost unbelievable lack of knowledge” by a former NATO general, and even that wouldn’t matter. It’s all about what you believe, not what you know.

Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of “24” and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American’s supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery.

Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn’t making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there’s no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness.

. . . a little bit at a time:

In a German case in which a Muslim, Moroccan-born 26-year-old mother of two was petitioning for an expedited divorce from a man who had beaten her and threatened her life, Judge Christa Datz-Winter denied the woman’s request, a woman who already had a restraining order on her husband after police were called last May because he attacked her. The reason for the injudicious divorce denial? The Koran, the judge said, instructs that “men are in charge of women.” She explained further that the couple hails from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife.”

For further details, see this.

The former German foreign minister and 1960s street radical has some interesting things to say to the Opinion Journal.

From the OpinionJournal:

The European Union—led by Germany, France and Italy—has long been Iran’s largest trading partner. Its share of Iran’s total imports is about 35%. Even more notable: Its trade with Tehran has expanded since Iran’s secret nuclear program was exposed. Between 2003 and 2005, Europe’s exports rose 29% to €12.9 billion; machinery, transport equipment and chemicals make up the bulk of the sales. Imports from Iran, predominantly oil, increased 62% to €11.4 billion in that period.

In the absence of an official embargo against Tehran, private EU companies have sought commercial opportunities in Iran. But the real story here is that these businesses are subsidized by European taxpayers. Government-backed export guarantees have fueled the expansion in trade. That, in turn, has boosted Iran’s economy and—indirectly by filling government coffers with revenues—its nuclear program. The German record stands out. In its 2004 annual report on export guarantees, Berlin’s Economics Ministry dedicated a special section to Iran that captures its giddy excitement about business with Tehran:

Federal Government export credit guarantees played a crucial role for German exports to Iran; the volume of coverage of Iranian buyers rose by a factor of almost 3.5 to some €2.3 billion compared to the previous year,” the report said. “The Federal Government thus insured something like 65% of total German exports to the country. Iran lies second in the league of countries with the highest coverage in 2004, hot on the heels of China.

Iran tops Germany’s list of countries with the largest outstanding export guarantees, totaling €5.5 billion. France’s export guarantees to Iran amount to about €1 billion. Italy’s come to €4.5 billion, accounting for 20% of Rome’s overall guarantee portfolio. Little Austria had, at the end of 2005, €800 million of its exports to Iran covered by guarantees.

The Europeans aren’t simply facilitating business between private companies. The vast majority of Iranian industry is state-controlled, while even private companies have been known to act as fronts for the country’s nuclear program. EU taxpayers underwrite trade and investment that would otherwise be deterred by the risks of doing business with a rogue regime.

It’s also hard not to see a connection between Europe’s commercial interests and its lenient diplomacy. The U.N.’s December sanctions resolution orders countries to freeze the assets of only 10 specific companies and 12 individuals with ties to Iran’s nuclear program. Europe’s governments continue to resist U.S. calls for financial sanctions, and the German Chamber of Commerce recently estimated that tougher economic sanctions would cost 10,000 German jobs.

As if on cue, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week detected in Tehran a “new ambition” to resume talks. The last time the Europeans promoted such diplomatic negotiations, Iran won two more years to get closer to its goal of becoming a nuclear power. In 2004, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily, then-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told Iranians to consider Europe a “protective shield” against U.S. pressure. The EU continues to provide a shield for its business interests in Iran, and thus a lifeline to a regime that is unpopular at home and sponsors terror abroad.

Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post:

. . . it’s not unusual in Germany, or elsewhere in Europe, to hear that the “war on terrorism” is phony, a jumped-up invention of the Bush administration and the American media, a pretend reason for the invasion of Iraq, a laughably stupid way of conning voters—and a pathetic excuse for limiting artistic freedom.

Neither the events of Sept. 11 nor any of the bombings that followed seems to have convinced Europeans that anything important has changed in the world. I only wish they were right.

I just received an email from a cyberfriend living in Germany. Here’s part of what she has to say:

There is a subtle atmospheric change here in Germany that I attribute to 1) the bombs found in the train stations, 2) the Guenter Grass SS confession, which has somehow empowered people to stand up to the anti-American, root-cause peace-now leftists, and 3) the Merkel government, which means that journalists don’t have to suck up to the leftists as much. I can’t point to specifics, but somehow the tenor of reporters has changed, as has the people who are being interviewed about the Islamofascist situation. There have been louder demands that moderate Muslims take a stronger stand against terrorism.

Gut.

Reader Karen provides an update on the incident reported yesterday:

It’s leading the TV news, with sizable excerpts from the press conference. Fingerprints and DNA from the suitcases match those of the arrestee. They are pretty sure there is a student cell but they don’t know much about it yet. It’s too soon for public reactions. Spiegel will probably have more tomorrow. This evening they also closed the main train station in Hamburg because of a bomb threat, but that’s a totally different MO.

Now it’s Germany. Bloomberg reports that two suitcases containing bottles of gasoline, propane gas and a detonating device were found in German regional trains on July 31. The bombs were primed to explode. A deadly simultaneous bombing was only averted because the bombs were technically defective Investigators concluded that the bombs were designed so that simultaneous detonation would have been possible and that they would have generated “an explosive force so big that the explosion would have reached the dimension of the subway attack on London in the summer of 2005,”

The president of the Federal Criminal Police and Germany’s most senior police official, Joerg Ziercke, , said that the perpetrators are “likely to have a terrorist background.” Investigators found pieces of paper with Arabic letters and telephone numbers from Lebanon in clothes which were in the suitcases to pad the gas bottles, he said. They also found starch bags from Lebanon.

The letter:

Speaking in Berlin today, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned that Germany should brace itself for similar attempts: “Unfortunately, we must assume that the danger of a repeat of these attempted attacks.”

UPDATE

From the Financial Times: News of the aborted attack has caused shock in Germany, where opinion polls show terrorism ranking low on the list of people’s fears and far behind unemployment and declining income. Since last month’s find, several regional governments have said they wanted to boost video surveillance of stations and other areas. Such plans have failed before over privacy concerns.

After a meeting nearly 50 countries in New York, the UN’s deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch-Brown, expressed what The Guardian describes as “cautious optimism,” telling reporters that some countries, fearing a scenario in which their soldiers are killed trying to enforce peace, said they needed to know more about the UN force’s terms of engagement before they decided whether to risk troops. His expression of “cautious optimism” took place after France announced that it would provide UNIFIL with only 200 additional troops, not the 3,000 to 4,000 the UN had counted upon.

German Chancellor Merkel, says the International Herald Tribune, “made clear” that Germany would send no combat troops. She did confirm that it might help with naval efforts to secure the Lebanese coast.

The IHT makes note of remarks by the French defense minister that UNIFIL lacks sufficient intelligence, equipment and troops. Talking about self-fulfilling prophesies! Of course UNIFIL will suffer from these shortcomings if France, which still sees itself as the leader of the pack, sends only 200 troops.

If further evidence were needed, as Robert Kagan put it, that Europeans “are from Venus” and are “turning away from power, or to put it a little differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation,” this is it. The UN, of course, epitomizes this unreal world. Risk lives in an effort, however misguided, to achieve peace? Forget about it. Talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.

America is sending strong signals that, to use Kagan’s phraseology, it’s no longer “from Mars” and has slipped into the European orbit. Secretary of Rice seems to be trying to out-dissemble the UN’s Malloch-Brown:

“I don’t think there is an expectation that this [UN] force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah. I think it’s a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily.”


If Hezbollah resists international demands to disarm, Rice said, “one would have to assume that there will be others who are willing to call Hezbollah what we are willing to call it, which is a terrorist organization.”

Hope? Assume? Resolution 1701 is a farce. The U.S. is pretending it isn’t. The Bush Administration has lost its nerve. Senator Kerry must be a happy man.

RELATED: In The Times, Gerard Baker skewers Bush over the Israel-Hezbollah war, Iran, and Iraq. He’s a worried man—with good reason.

I’m all for it. If there are any soldiers—especially any European soldiers—that won’t “disproportionately” favor Lebanon and Hezbollah at the expense of Israel, it’s German soldiers. The mere idea of Germans killing Jews, is, well . . . (words escape me).

The Times reports the details:

The decision to deploy [German] troops to join the 15,000-strong Unifil peacekeeping force was made by Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, in consultation with three Cabinet ministers.

Werner Sonne, a leading commentator, said on German state television that

We have to do this, not in spite of the Holocaust, but because of it. If German troops guard Israel’s borders, they are there to protect Jewish lives. Frankly, there has never been a better reason to bring in soldiers in German uniform.

Merkel, says The Times, seems ready to send some 3,000 troops, of whom about 1,000 will be Pioneers with heavy earth-moving equipment to help to rebuild airports and harbours. The navy, already in the eastern Mediterranean on Operation Active Endeavour, would be strengthened with frigates to patrol the coast of Lebanon. The German Air Force is being put on stand-by to fly reconnaissance missions from Cyprus and the German Border Service could be put on patrol along the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah. German soldiers could find themselves drawn into a firefight in any of these theatres.

The Holocaust taboo is beginning to crumble. Germany has been encouraged to send a big contingent by Prime Minister Olmert. In an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung this month, Mr Olmert said that

There is at the moment no nation that is behaving in a more friendly way towards Israel than Germany. If Germany can contribute to the security of the Israeli people, that would be a worthwhile task for your country. I would be very happy if Germany participated.

It will be very interesting to see how the German public reacts to Merkel’s decision.

In an international version of “a new prison/garbage-disposal facility/low-costing housing is a good idea, as long as it’s not in my backyard”, there’s support for an international military force to be placed in southern Lebanon, but no one, according to the New York Times, wants to supply troops:

The United States has ruled out its soldiers participating, NATO says it is overstretched, Britain feels its troops are overcommitted and Germany says it is willing to participate only if Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia which it would police, agrees to it.

The basis for the U.S. position is self-evident: as Israel’s sponsor in the Proxy War, our presence wouldn’t exactly be welcomed by any of Lebanon’s Arab neighbors. Then, too, there’s the burden of history. As the Times points out:

France — which has called the idea of a force premature — and the United States are haunted by their last participation in a multinational force in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion in 1982, when they became belligerents in the Lebanese civil war and tangled fatally with Hezbollah. They withdrew in defeat after Hezbollah’s suicide bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which killed 241 Marines and 56 French soldiers.

The Europeans are operating in never-never land, as is their wont. The international buffer force they envisage would follow a cease-fire and operate with the consent of the Lebanese government to support the deployment of its army in southern Lebanon. In the Times’ words,

Such a scenario would mean that Hezbollah, which is part of the Lebanese government, would have to be part of a decision that led to its own disarming and the protection of Israel . . .

In other words, fat chance.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Solana threw cold water on NATO and placed his faith on—you guessed it—the UN:

“I think several member states of the European Union will be ready to provide all necessary assistance [under a Security Council mandate],” he said, but did not name the countries or what they might be prepared to do.
Mr. Solana is said to be wary of a NATO-led force. Another senior European Union official said. “NATO is too identified with the United States,” the official said. “It would be Iraq all over again.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Solana to name names.

What the Times article underlines is the West’s lack of will to confront the threat posed by expansionist Iran. If the will existed, the necessary military forces would be available.

U.S. vetoes resolution against Gaza incursion (from the Washington Post):

The U.S. vetoed a UN Security Council resolution put forward by Qatar on behalf of Arab states that would have condemned Israel’s two-week military incursion into Gaza. The vote on the draft resolution was 10-1, with the United States voting no, and four countries abstaining—Britain, Denmark, Peru and Slovakia. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Washington had voted against the text because it was “untimely and already outmoded” . . . The resolution would have demanded the unconditional release of an Israeli soldier captured earlier as well as Israel’s immediate withdrawal from Gaza and the release of dozens of Palestinian officials detained by Israel.

European statements (from the New York Times):

German Chancellor Merkel—It is important to remember “how this escalation started, through the kidnapping of the soldiers, through rockets – from the firing of missiles against Israeli territory. The parties to that conflict obviously have to use proportionate means, but I am not at all for sort of blurring the lines between the root causes and the consequences of an action.”

French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy—“We obviously condemn this disproportionate act of war, which moreover has two consequences. The first is that it forces anyone who wants to enter Lebanon from now on to go either by sea or via Syria. The second consequence is that it risks plunging Lebanon back into the worst years of the war . . . Today there is a risk of a very dangerous spiral of violence, which could destabilize the entire region.”

European Union—“The European Union is greatly concerned about the disproportionate use of force by Israel in Lebanon in response to attacks by Hezbollah on Israel. The presidency deplores the loss of civilian lives and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. The imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified.”

Russia—“One cannot justify the continued destruction by Israel of the civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and in Palestinian territory, involving the disproportionate use of force in which the civilian population suffers . . . All forms of terrorism are completely unacceptable. All sides involved in the current events should take rapid measures to stop the region sliding into open conflict.

British statement (from The Guardian)— Statement of Foreign Secretary Beckett:

“We urge all parties to do all they can to address this crisis and to prevent the situation from worsening. We strongly support the UN efforts to arrange, as quickly as possible, a ceasefire and the release of the abducted soldiers. We call for the urgent release of the Israeli soldiers and an end to the attacks on Israeli towns and cities and urge all those countries with influence over Hezbollah and Hamas to play their part. Israel has every right to respond to inexcusable acts of provocation, but while Israel is entitled to do what is required to protect its security, it should do so in a way which does not escalate the situation and which is proportionate and measured, conforms to international law and avoids civilian deaths and suffering.”

Israeli statements (from The Times):

Israeli army radio announcement—“Israel is imposing an air, maritime and land blockade on Lebanon until further orders as part of operations to retrieve its two soldiers abducted by Hezbollah on Wednesday.”

Shalom Simchon (Agriculture Minister)—Israel “wants to make the Lebanese Government understand that it is responsible for what happens in Lebanon.”

Mark Regev (Foreign Ministry spokesman)—Palestinian Foreign Minister Zahar “is part of a leadership that is involved in a very tangible way in terrorism and in violence. He had knowledge of the recent hostage taking, and he is part of a leadership that has orchestrated rocket attacks, countless rocket attacks … countless missile attacks against Israeli urban areas.”

Hezbullah statement (from The Times):

“The Islamic Resistance declares that it will shell the city of Haifa and surrounding areas if the southern suburbs and Beirut are the target of a direct Israeli aggression.”

ISRAELI PRESS LINKS

Jerusalem Post (Op-Ed)—“ Hoping the Ripples Reach Iran“

Jerusalem Post (Op-Ed)—“The Predicament of the Lebanese Government“

Jerusalem Post (Op-Ed)—“Blinded by Engagement“

Jerusalem Post (Editorial)—“War and Peace“

Jerusalem Post (Editorial)—“Stop Iran Now“

Jerusalem Post (Editorial)—“Taha’s Temerity“

Haaretz (Editorial)—“‘No’ to Lebanon War II“

I’m really annoyed by former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer’s hypercritical assessment of the American decision to invade Iraq and severely pessimistic outlook for the Middle East’s future.

It’s what he omits that bothers me.

To be intellectually honest, a critic of the decision to invade (as opposed to critics of the prosecution of the war) must present a reasoned case for what the world would now be like had the U.S. not overthrown Saddam’s regime. If Fischer—and others like him—think that the world would be in a better place, it’s incumbent upon them to postulate a sequence of events that would otherwise have taken place and explain why we would be better off with Saddam still in power. Each of us could then evaluate the validity of their hypothesized scenarios.

What gets my back up even more is that, according to Fischer, the current mess is entirely America’s fault. His position boils down to this: because Germany (along with France and others) opposed the invasion, it is absolved of all responsibility for what has happened since March 19, 2003. This ignores the possibility that, had the Security Council endorsed Saddam’s overthrow and the Germans and French been members of the coalition, the situation in Iraq and elsewhere in the region might be better than it now is.

It is not always true that only those who act are responsible for what happens. Sometimes, those who fail to act must share the responsibility.

If you thought it was over, you’re wrong. Spiegel Online reported today that a militant Muslim group—Ansar al-Sunna—with a presence in Germany and other European nations has published an online list of newspapers that reprinted the cartoons, urging Muslims to take action against Western journalists. At the end of the article the authors formulate a call to violence by telling readers that “”[t]he path of jihad against the enemies of God is still available.”

The online journal lists dozens of European newspapers that reprinted the Mohammad cartoons. Spiegel avers that “[t]errorism experts who follow the site believe the journal’s authors are trying to motivate potential assasins to engage in acts of retaliation.” Spiegel adds that Ansar al-Sunna has joined a growing chorus of militant voices—a development that deeply concerns terrorism experts.

According to Guido Steinberg, a terrorism expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs,

Given what is happening, you have to assume there will be reactions from militants in the countries cited by Ansar, or against journalists from those countries. This kind of publication, backed by a large transnational terrorist organization, is dangerous.

Ansar has a network of militants already on the ground in Germany, Scandinavia and Italy. The founder of Ansar al-Islam, the organization out of which Ansar al-Sunna developed, lives in Norway. In recent years, Ansar followers have been caught trafficking militants in and out of Iraq from Italy and Germany. The Iraqi exiles thought to have planned an assassination attempt on Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in Berlin last year come from the same network.

From Spiegel Online:

Between 2000 and 2005, German exports to Iran more than doubled. Last year they reached a new record of €4.4 billion, or 0.6 percent of Germany’s total export volume. Manufacturers of machinery and equipment are the main beneficiaries because Iran is using German know-how to develop its economy.

In its latest filing with the SEC, Deutsche Bank said that doing business with partners in countries that the US government regards as supporters of terrorism “could stop potential customers and investors in the United States and elsewhere from doing business with us or investing in our shares.”

Among the most risky business partners is the obscure Iranian state holding company IFIC which controls a network of corporate holdings around the world. Alongside stakes in a Namibian uranium mine and telecoms companies in the Sudan and Yemen, the Iranians also hold an indirect stake in German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp via a Düsseldorf-based IFIC subsidiary. After the US exerted pressure, that stake was reduced to less than 5 percent three years ago, and the Iranian representative on the supervisory board had to go.

German banks Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and WestLB have ties with the Düsseldorf IFIC unit. The Iranian business operations of German financial institutions are largely confined to export and project financing for German firms. This involves payments transactions with Iranian state-owned banks such as Bank Melli—a fact that angers the US government.

German firms are already complaining that the cost of credit and loan guarantees for their business deals in Iran is starting to rise. Last Thursday, international finance experts at a meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris heightened their risk assessment for Iran. Iran is now seen on the same risk level as countries hit by civil war like Sri Lanka and Colombia.

The Atlantic Review reports that according to a poll last week from the respectable Forsa Institute, 45 % of Germans call the U.S. a “greater threat to world peace” than Iran. 28 % think that Iran is a greater threat. For 16 %, the U.S. and Iran pose identical threats.

I’m delighted to have been asked to be the American host for the English-language submissions to the second edition of the Carnival. For those of you who missed the first, here’s how it was introduced by the Atlantic Review:

Many Germans have had a high regard for the US for its support for (West-) Germany, civil liberties and the rule of law, its thoughtful political debates and critical press, and the establishment of international organizations. Many German friends of the US have felt increasingly estranged in the last couple of years due to restrictions on civil liberties and the rule of law in the US, an uncritical media during the run up to the Iraq war, and the perception of increasing unilateralism and of a bellicose foreign policy rhetoric of some politicians. Others just seized the chance to express their anti-Americanism more openly.

Many Americans have the impression that Germans are ungrateful, unsupportive, hypocritical and don’t understand how the world has changed on 9/11 and that the war on terror requires new methods and thinking. The disagreements, however, are not primarily between Americans and Germans, but between liberals and conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, and even within those political tents. Thus many liberal Americans and Germans argue that giving up moral values in the war on terrorism is surrender and does not defeat terrorists, but helps them to get more recruits.

While this is a largely accurate depiction of the state of relations between our governments and our peoples, it doesn’t take into account a critical distinction. While it’s true that there are both liberals and conservatives in both Germany and the U.S., the center of gravity of German politics is significantly further to the left (liberal) side. Given my center-right leanings, I welcome Angela Merkel’s Chancellorship and hope that it marks the beginning of a rapproachement between our two countries.

So much for my thoughts. What follows is a tour of the 35 English-language submissions to the Carnival. My thanks to each and every participant.

TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS

Our own Dr. Demarche, in “Why Aren’t We in This Together?,” bemoans the recent decline in US/German relations:

. . . we still do have much in common, including a closely shared recent history, but no one seems to notice, or to care enough to talk about that. All that matters are the differences.

in the aftermath of the Cold War petty differences have blossomed and become major issues, on both sides of the Atlantic. I would venture to say that the average German has nothing against the average American, and vice versa . . . Elites on both sides of the ocean, fueled by, and at the same time fueling, the media propagate the idea that a vast gulf separates Americans and Europeans on issues such as climate change, the environment in general, terrorism, and foreign aid. There are specific differences to be sure—how members of each society view the state, for example, but in general the similarities outweigh the differences.

His advice:

It is up to us, Germans and Americans, to look for the similarities and to recognize that the differences do not make us enemies or mean that we can not work together to solve common problems, but rather that those differences may hold the key to reaching viable solutions.

Alan Posener, the Kommentarchef at Welt am Sonntag, contributed an article entitled “The United States is not today’s empire. The European Union is.” On the subject of American unilateralism, Posener says this:

. . . the criticism of America’s unilateralism is both unfair (the United States has, both under Bill Clinton and both Bushes, always sought to resolve international conflicts through the UN) and naive, given the totally instrumental relationship with this world body that America’s imperialist competitors, including China and Russia, had and have not to mention various Arab, African, European, and Central Asian dictators. When Europe finally resolved to take action against one of its own dictators – Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic – yet failed to gain the blessings of the United Nations because Milosevic was a client of Moscow, the Europeans discovered that NATO, an alliance of democratic states, was just as good at legitimizing the use of force to protect human rights as the United Nations. The principle of the “coalition of the willing” was invented not by George W. Bush, but by the Europeans and Bill Clinton.

In “Defense budget: US spends too much and Europe spends too little?”, the Atlantic Review’s Jorg W. comments on the latest Munich Conference on Security Policy. At this year’s Conference, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld expressed his appreciation to Chancellor Merkel for having labeled terrorism as “the greatest challenge to our security in the 21st century.” But Rumsfeld wants Merkel to back up her words with increased defense spending. According to a Department of Defense report, Germany’s defense spending was 1.45% of GDP in 2003 and with $35 billion amounted to less than ten percent of US spending ($384 billion).

According to Jens Laurson and George Pieler, Chancellor Merkel efforts at patching up German-American relations are off to a good start. In their TCS Daily article (“Merkel’s Atlantic Crossing”), they are optimistic:

Surely but subtly Merkel is nudging Berlin’s foreign policy a bit closer to the US-UK Atlantic Alliance, delicately relaxing links with the Franco-Russian entente that so entrances Schröder. The question is: can she manage these power relations to strengthen US-German relations without weakening Germany’s role in Europe. If history offers any guidance, the answer is yes.

In “In my opinion, we need each other,” Wayne at FlexBlue sounds an optimistic note, averring that “I believe leaders like President Bush and German Chancellor Merkel understand this basic need and share other perceptions as well.”

Shah Alexander, in a wide-ranging article entitled “Iran Review: America, Europe, and Japan at Crossroads to Deal With Nuclear Theocracy” posted at Global American Discourse, argues that thanks to Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s words and deeds, “the transatlantic bond is cementing again.”

In “Four more years please, Mr. Bush,” Ulrike (a self-described German U.S. enthusiast) takes former Chancellor Schroeder to the woodshed:

. . . it´s been ashaming to witness his betrayal of the long-term friendship with the USA by not only criticizing Bush´s policy unfairly, but even actively forming a coalition with France and Russia against the US, causing a failed UN Security Council resolution and trying to isolate the USA. Is this the way friends are supposed to act in critical times? Absolutely not. Obviously, Chancellor Schroeder forgot how much the Germans owe the Americans in regard to our freedom, security and wealth during the Cold War, and also in regard to the German reunification . . .

Merkel or not, Fred Fry of Fred Fry International is anything but optimistic. In “Whose Side Is Germany On?,” he takes a look at Germany’s Afghanistan and Iraq policies and the release of terrorists that had been taken into custody and concludes that “Germany is actively working against the U.S., on many fronts.”

Like Fred Fry, Rosemary at Knickerbocker News isn’t happy with Germany’s treatment of terrorists. In “Germany Frees Terrorist; Hostage Set Free; Coincidence?,” she refers to a terrorist incident dating from 1985 involving a Lebanese Hizbollah highjacker who murdered U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in Beirut. Despite repeated American requests to have him extradited, the German government never complied and recently released him.

Kathy Krajco’s “Ready . . . Aim . . . Fire!,” posted at At the Zoo, is a broadside at European elites, who she accuses of having “destroyed their credibility on the Iraq issue, in advance, by their irrational opposition to our intervention in Afghanistan.” Continuing, she claims that “If the elite Europeans were as morally superior as they pretend to be, they wouldn’t be caught dead on the side they’re on.”

In (“In denial“), Observing Hermann, citing a “leak” at the Pentagon a few months ago about the German intelligence service (the BND) as a example, tells us that

Germany and the United States may not always agree upon everything, but even when they do agree, or might, or even could, they just can’t. Or simply won’t. Not unless they can deny having done so afterwards, that is.

ANTI-AMERICANISM

Erik Svane is the founder of Americans Anonymous — an organization for expatriates who are “ashamed to admit that they are U.S. citizens when in the company of a group of smug, self-righteous foreigners.” On the home page of his website are these words:

I have learned true humility. I have had to face up to the truth. The sad and uncomfortable truth. I now realize that as Americans, we cannot, and never will, measure up to Europeans (among others) in the areas of honesty, generosity, tolerance, solidarité (en français dans le texte), clear-mindedness, humanitarianism, infinite wisdom, true democracy, world peace, and the love of one’s fellow man.

David’s Medienkritik has posted numerous articles on the anti-American bias of the German media. In “Rushing to Judge America: A Blinding German Obsession,” Ray D. claims that “A morbid obsession with American crimes, real and perceived, has replaced most authentic concern for international human rights.” As an example, he contrasts coverage of the German Government’s relationship with Sudan and the recently-released Aby Ghraib photos:

While the German government busily promotes German industry at annual trade fairs in Khartoum, the German media quietly looks the other way as the Sudanese government continues its campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur. On the other hand, when previously unseen photos of Abu Ghraib recently emerged, the German media had an absolute field day. SPIEGEL came out with a particularly exploitative cover and finger-wagging editorials popped up like so many mushrooms.

Ray thinks this has to change; otherwise, “meaningful dialog will continue to grow increasingly difficult and the German-American partnership will continue to disintegrate.”

In a similar vein, Jorge at the Atlantic Review asks “Why is Abu Ghraib a cover story again, but not Darfur?“. Jorge’s answer:

It seems that the German media picks on the US more than on any other country. This could be understood as either a compliment, i.e. the assumption that the US would care about German criticism and change their policies, or as Anti-Americanism as the Wall Street Journal opined.

Jorge then brings up Darfur:

Darfur is more outrageous in both magnitude and intensity than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, but the US scandals are more in the news because the media is more interested in the perpetrators than in the victims. US perpetrators are more sexy than Sudanese perpetrators, it seems. German criticism of US human rights violations would be more credible if the German media would be equally concerned about the much [more] serious violations around the world.

At Winds of Change.NET, Joe Katzman delves into the rationale for and damage done by the anti-American bias of the German media. In “The German Question: Darfur, Diplomacy and the European Media,” Joe proffers a pessimistic prognostication:

. . . the external US bogeyman is too useful to Europe’s left, and to its elites, to be abandoned. Nor is it something America can talk them out of. Standing at the helm of a project doomed to failure by economics and inexorable demographics, their need for that bogeyman can only rise. America’s approach to economics and government is and will remain their #1 ideological threat. Which is why America is and will remain their #1 enemy.

This is unfortunate, but unchangeable. In practical terms, it means we haven’t seen the last of this sort of thing by any means. Nor can we expect even basic honesty in quoting US public figures . . . The inevitable consequence will be a deepening of the “parallel information universes,” a Europe that sees more fissures between itself and America – and an America that cares less and less, as it focuses on more important threats and areas of future opportunity.

Kuch’s post at Stubborn Facts (“A Little Even-handedness Would Be Nice“) argues that the uproar in the German media about the possible assistance to U.S. military planners from German BND agents in Baghdad “speaks volumes about the overall attitude of German society.” Kuch then raises these broader questions:

What is it about the German public’s mindset that makes it so willing to gleefully cling to anything that “puts America in its place?” Why does opposition to US policies appear to be a winning political platform in Germany?

He pins a large portion of the blame on the German media:”The German media has some real soul searching to do, and is greatly responsible for this shift in attitudes toward the US.”

In two related posts (“The day I woke as pro-American, part I” and “The day I woke as pro-American, part III“) at Pursuit of Serenity, Marian Tobias Wirth details his escape from anti-Americanism. Wirth describes the beginning of his transformation this way:

One morning, I woke as a pro-American. Now, considering my nationality, you can probably imagine, that I was in serious trouble. I suddenly got an idea of the situation Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis found himself in:

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.

Pro-american! How low can you get? How could that happen? In order to answer this questions, I had to investigate my own personal history.

Kathy Krajco at At the Zoo argues in “German Anti-Americanism and What to Do About It” that anti-Americanism isn’t anything new:

Europeans have always been anti-American, and their myth about us today is rooted in centuries past. Read about it here. In fact, many authorities maintain that European anti-Americanism was worse in the 1930’s than it is today.

As to Germany (and France), she relates their dependency on the U.S. during the Cold War and then says this:

We have been such friends-in-need to the German people since the end of hostilities in World War II that they now sarcastically use the epithet “the friends” for “the Americans.” And, like the French, they use this term for “the Americans” as a catch-all term for the American government, American business, and the American people.

In a second At the Zoo post (“Driving a Wedge of Hostility Between America and Europe), Kathy takes aim at French President Chirac during the run-up to the Iraq war. In this post, she approvingly cites Sorbonne lecturer Francoise Thom for saying that the “unhealthy French communion in anti-Americanism reveals the start of a drift towards totalitarianism” in which the American president is assigned the obligatory role of “enemy of the people.”

In still another At the Zoo post (“European culture and civilization is worth preserving“), Kathy avers that today’s anti-Americanism is the projection of European guilt and shame over the fall of their empires onto the U.S.:

Through the magic of projection, THEY aren’t the uncivilized brute beasts, WE are. THEY aren’t the imperialists, WE are. THEY aren’t the warmongers, WE are. THEY aren’t the ones who choose fascist dictators to lead them, WE do.

At Misunderestimated Germans, Michael Meyn, in “Clashing Mindsets,” claims that the American and German mind sets are exact opposites. This is his description of the German variety:

Most people don’t want to hear about morals, God, family values or good and evil. To them it’s all relative. Tolerance and fairness are their highest commandments. (But they refuse to tolerate the simple truth that life is never fair and it can’t be made fair by anyone, especially the government.) The German media is aware of that and they report accordingly.

Writing in English, an anonymous contributor at the German blog Extrablog, in “Gringo,”
suggests that Americans talk to Mexicans to understand Germany. This recommendation comes about from his travels to Mexico (where he was treated well) and the U.S. (where he wasn’t).

Herr Dittmar, writing in English at the German blog mimus vitae, proudly reports on the coverage of his son by an American newspaper. From these words in his “Robin in America, Part III,” I can’t tell whether this post should be categorized as anti-American:

That’s what is likely to happen when a young man dares to accomplish the leap from the rather sleepy hollow Europe across the Atlantic Ocean: He makes it to page #1 of the sports section of an American newspaper, and to top this, as a “Defender”!

CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

A comparison between today’s Muslim immigrants and yesterday’s German immigrants is drawn by Zabrina at Thought You’d Never Ask. In “Old world/new world” she says:

The more I learn about the problems of immigrant Muslims in western countries, the more similarities I see between their situation and the situation that existed among the communities of German immigrants here in the U.S. before the World Wars. The German immigrants too had to face the question of how far to assimilate in their new homeland, what traditions and customs and values to jettison (or to say goodbye to when circumstances stripped them away), and what to embrace (or at least tolerate with an uneasy truce). (Click here for an overview of U.S. German immigrant history.)

At GM’s Corner, George Mann Roper’s post (“Let Us Hope Germany Doesn’t Go Down This Road Again“) comments on in article in Denmark’s Jylland-Posten (of Mohammed cartton fame) regarding a movement in Germany that has “gone to the prosecutors of several states to hinder the dissemination of the Quran. According to the indictment, the Quran is not just a religious and historic book, but also a political book, which is incompatible with the constiution.” Roper’s reaction:

Banning the Quran is far too close to the book burnings of the Nazi era in Germany, the novel Fahrenheit 451, and even the destruction of rock and roll records seen in this country not too many moons ago and even the really, really stupid McCain-Feingold Act of today. If the West is to win this war of ideas, a couple of things must be made perfectly clear to all. 1) Democratic governance is prime including free speech, universal sufferage, and the rights of minorities; 2) terrorism in any form will be met with staunch resistance and harsh penalties; 3) we cannot stoop to the fascistic level of those we are fighting against because if we do, we become like them.

QuickRob asks “Why Is Germany not France?” He notes that while “France has seen scarce time on the front page of International News that wasn’t somehow related to unrest, Germany, which suffers from the same afflictions as France, has been quiet.

“Oh yeah almost forgot. And death to Germany, too!” is gallows humor from the keyboard of Observing Hermann. He tells the tale of a Dr. Madjiid Azimi, head of ambulant services at Teheran’s Kill the Jews General Hospital. Azimi explain what he has come to call the European Caricature Stress Syndrome:

It is characterized by recurring mental lapses and extremely short-term memory loss caused by the ever-increasing number of foreign countries a protester has to remember in order to ritually condemn them to death.

GERMANY, PAST AND PRESENT

In “The Nazi Slur,” Callimachus at Done With Mirrors wonders about its prevalence in light of the fact that it was the “treacherous” Japanese, not the Germans, who “blindsided us and brought the war to us.” Furthermore, it was the Japanese, not the Germans, who were dehumanized in American propaganda. Here’s Callimachus’ answer:

“Nazi” is safey deracinated. There were Hungarian, Croatian, Ukrainian, and French Nazis. There were American Nazis. That elevates it to a special category.

In “Berlin still having trouble remembering stuff,” Observing Herman uses Checkpoint Charlie of Cold War fame as an example of the German onsession with Vergangenheitsbewältigung (getting a grip on the past).

Another Observing Hermann post (“One of my favorite Herrschaftsformen“) notes that, while Germany has been ruled by aristrocrats, monarchs, despots, and now democrats, one thing has remained constant throughout its history: bureaucrats. In fact,

Germans are the born bureaucrats. Nature has deemed it so. And that is why I can’t fail to see the humor in the German’s failure to see the humor in the recent Bürokratie-Reform rhetoric being propagated by the current German government of Angela Merkel. I mean, doesn’t anybody get it? It’s all a big, elaborate practical joke, people – again.

Piglito, in “Germany loses the brightest minds to the US” draws attention to the emigration of Germany’s best and brightest to the “greener pastures” of America and Canada.

“The Weimar Diaspora and American Political Thought” is the subject of the post contributed by Dialog International. Here’s a taste of what the author has to say:

German influence on American political thought has never been greater. The ghosts of the Weimar Republic are haunting us still today. The amazing influx of artists, scientists and intellectuals from Germany from 1932 to 1945 was “Hitler’s gift” to America; most of these cultural creatives remained in the US after the war, so they have left a permanent mark on American society.

Another submission by Dialog International (“Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner and the Death Penalty“) deals with contribution of Herr Wagner to the abolition of the death penalty in West Germany in 1949.

A blog dedicated to the German satirist Kurt Tucholsky (1890-1935) includes an English translation of Tucholsky’s 1927 “What if . . . ” In a post entitled “Was waere, wenn . . . ,” the translation is introduced as follows:

. . .the German satirist, publicist, and prescient critic of National Socialism was quoted in “The Case for Impeachment”, a recent article in Harper’s: “A country is not only what it does – it is also what it puts up with, what it tolerates.” Now is the time to read Tucholsky in American, because not only was he uncannily accurate in predicting Germany’s future, many of his works produce eerie undertones when held against the backdrop of contemporary America.

I once read a passage in a history of World War Two ( I think it was in the Stephen Ambrose book “Band of Brothers”) that has always stuck with me. The soldier speaking reflected on his first experience with the Germans, after landing on D-day and fighting the entire way into Germany- he realized that the Germans were more like us than were the French. He commented on the German’s cleanliness, integrity and industriousness in contrast to the “unclean” French who rolled over and allowed the Germans to dominate them and us to come and save them. This soldier found it strange that he and his friends were in Germany, fighting to save European nations that did not appear to deserve to be saved, just as his father had done. After all, Germany and the United States had a great deal in common.

The irony behind the recent decline in US/German relations is that we still do have much in common, including a closely shared recent history, but no one seems to notice, or to care enough to talk about that. All that matters are the differences. In the summer of 2004 I spent a week visiting a friend in Berlin, where we took in the German-American Volksfest- a forty something year old tradition that is a cross between a cultural event (the theme is a different a region of the U.S. each year) and a county fair complete with roller coasters and cotton candy. The event is held on what used to be called “Truman Platz” across the street from the U.S. Embassy Annex. If you have ever been to an “Octoberfest” in the U.S. imagine the mirror image of that in Germany and you will have a pretty good idea of what the event is like- earnest but somewhat cheesy.

After an early evening of good beer and a close approximation of bar-b-que ribs my friend and I, accompanied by several Americans and Germans who work with him, headed for the U-bahn (subway) to go downtown in search of more beer and food. On the train we were approached by a somewhat tipsy German fellow who mentioned, in impeccable American accented English, that he had seen us at the fair. He went on to say that the fair was not the same with the U.S. troops no longer in Berlin- followed almost casually by a quip that he was sorry to see his friends leave Berlin and to go on to massacre people all over the world. Why, he wondered, had the American people become such killers? We were all too stunned to really answer, so he asked again- where had we learned that this was the way to solve problems? After a beat or two had passed one of the Germans with us answered in a sad tone of voice “perhaps they learned it from us.” There ensued a brief argument in German too fast for me to follow, and we exited the train soon after. Later what bothered me the most was not that this unknown German had a low opinion of us, but that my friend’s colleague appeared to agree with the sentiment that we have become a too violent player on the world stage.

America has always had close ties to Germany, starting with the number of German immigrants who came to the colonies. In the aftermath of WWII, as the U.S. and our allies squared off against the Soviet Union, Germany, particularly Berlin, became the focal point of the Cold War and relations between America and Germany were quickly resotred in the face of a common enemy. When the Soviets cut off Berlin we airlifted food and supplies into the city, highlighted by then Lieutenant Gail S. Halvorsen’s candy parachute drops. President Kennedy declared himself, and by extension all of America to be Berliners (and not jelly doughnuts). Allied and Soviet troops stared each other down in huge numbers across the Fulda Gap and eye to eye across the street at Checkpoint Charlie. The world cheered when President Reagan famously challenged General Secretary Gorbachev to:

“Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! “

When the wall did come down no one outside of Germany cheered louder than we did here in America. So where did it all go awry?

Today the United States and Germany face very similar internal issues. Ongoing immigration and what to do with the existing, largely unassimilated, immigrant populations haunt both societies, with no easy answer in site for the Mexicans in the U.S. or the Turks in Germany. Both societies face graying populations and declining numbers of workers paying into increasingly expensive retirement support systems. Employment for the masses is a constant news topic in both lands, although the U.S problem is not as severe as the German. The threat from militant Islam, which so far has not directly affected Germany, indirectly threatens all Western nations. To quote the numbers presented by the German Embassy in D.C.:

• US travelers rank second only to visitors from the Netherlands in terms of overnight stays in Germany.

• In eastern Germany, more travelers come from the United States than any other country.

• About 10 percent of US investments in Germany are in the new federal states, making the US the largest investor in eastern Germany.

It seems that in the aftermath of the Cold War petty differences have blossomed and become major issues, on both sides of the Atlantic. I would venture to say that the average German has nothing against the average American, and vice versa (my U-bahn experience not withstanding). Elites on both sides of the ocean, fueled by, and at the same time fueling, the media propagate the idea that a vast gulf separates Americans and Europeans on issues such as climate change, the environment in general, terrorism, and foreign aid. There are specific differences to be sure- how members of each society view the state, for example, but in general the similarities outweigh the differences. It is up to us, Germans and Americans, to look for the similarities and to recognize that the differences do not make us enemies or mean that we can not work together to solve common problems, but rather that those differences may hold the key to reaching viable solutions.

The very tools that are often used to make the differences seem insurmountable- the Internet, satellite television and mass media- are the same tools that can bring us together, or better, make us realize that we never really drifted apart. Germany will play host to the largest party in the world this year with the World Cup to be played out across the country. Atlantic Review provides a link that I think bodes well for all of us: Americans among most popular World Cup guests. To my fellow Americans I say: go. Go to Germany and interact with the people. Learn about them and let them learn about you. Invite them to come and learn about us.

Governments come and go, but the people of a nation endure. The friendship between our two nations, rekindled in the hard days of the Cold War after WWII, was regained at great cost and should not be thrown away over misperceptions and sound bites. We will never agree on all things, I know. But if we continue to only seek the differences we will ever more find them increasing.