"Why do they Hate US?" revisited 30 january 2007 - US foreign policy

Nico Cauchy — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:27:00 GMT

<< As America tried to regain its balance after the devastation of 9/11, one of the first questions to appear dominated the media for several days, and repeatedly in the weeks thereafter: “Why do they hate us?”

On Saturday 27 January, 2007, a partial insert of the New York Times in the French daily Le Monde, printed a commentary by Nicholas D. Kristof “The US Stumbling Around the World.” The article refers largely to Iraq, but blends in a few interesting points of historical importance, including the 1953 intervention in Iran. Mostly, the article focuses on the question “Why are we so awful at foreign policy?”

As a US citizen, one of the only two civilians (non-medical or press) who actively participated on-site in the Ground Zero rescue on 12 September 01, and as a multinational citizen of the Earth, the question is of primordial importance.

A couple of days after the NYT article, I was dining with a long-time friend who is a world-recognized guide in sport-fishing tours with a strong ecological bias. He told me of a trip to Djibouti, in 2003, just at the time of the US invasion of Iraq. His description was the transformation of a paradise with pristine waters and coral reefs along a peacefully uninhabited coast, to a storm of madness far worse than Hurricane Katrina. In just one day, their boat was nearly capsized by a threatening US helicopter hovering so close, keeping them at gun-point with a heavy caliber, that they collapsed under the rotor-wash; the French frigate, that keeps fish-poachers out of the protected waters of this shark sanctuary, barely survived the double treatment of two twin-blade choppers doing the very same; on land, paths through the desert became US military highways overnight, with giant drapes thrown over rock formations to indicate “one way”, as if any direction mattered at all in the desert, and with US officers aggressively blocking a group of tourists attempting to reach the boat.

But the saddest image that Jean Michel remembers is a huge wall of sand storming across the desert, a sudden deafening roar of thunder as if only death could follow, and a squadron of gigantic hovercrafts floating at blazing speed across the sand and plunging, entirely oblivious to anyone or anything living or dead, right onto the sea… leaving behind acres of destroyed coral reefs. It turns out these reefs also were a protected habitat and particularly important given the current contributions of living corals to the study of climate change.

As I listened to Jean Michel, the madness he evoked came straight out of Dante’s Inferno. He and his group of clients promptly tried to file official complaints but were told by local authorities that “the Americans had bought the rights” to use Djibouti as part of Our “War on Terror”. We certainly did not fall short of “Terror”, a terror that we brought without forewarning to a population who had no idea that whatever their government had negotiated, would result in something so oppressing and devastating as was this invasion.

“Why do they hate us”, or “why are we so awful at foreign policy”? Because when we decide to act, we give little consideration to the side-effects. Just as when a multinational corporation ruthlessly floods our very own market with advertisements (for instance kids and junk/fast food, or horror films) without looking too far into the future, our military power seeks to intimidate everyone and annihilate everything in its path. This was once a sound military strategy before the era of globalization, or the proliferation of Our very own weapons of mass destruction; but it seems our military strategists have not grown conscious of the secondary effects of our military mobilizations. Our US governments have no concept (or so I hope) of such intangible costs that we incur as a “fringe benefit” of our forces passing through. And so, “For a Handful of Dollars”, another nation has learned the hard way that, unlike the current exchange rate, American money is not as cheap as it appeared. And they too feel “ripped off”, as do the tourists who were there, and all their families and friends and clients know of their story of the “terrible Americans”.

It will certainly take more than a change of administration to change the world view of Americans. We have one of the most open societies on the planet, we invent some of the best products (and unfortunately some of the worst – this is a topic for the next write-up), and our people is one of the most generous. Since we can’t realistically rely on our government for our image abroad, it’s up to us Americans to act as best we can in our interests and in those of the people of the Earth. America must once again lead by example, the example of its People!

Nicolai Cauchy

International business relations.

Sustainability, ecology, and balanced development.

Cambridge, MA & Paris, France

http://www.NicoCauchy.com

Socio-cultural & ecological sustainability issues

"Why do they Hate US?" revisited 30 january 2007 - US foreign policy