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.