20.11.03
State Visits: Well, this is more about reactions thereto. The Guardian published several letters from famous (and not so famous) Britons, some of whom live here in the states, as well as some famous American expatriates. A couple of excerpts I found heartening:
The first is from my favourite author, Frederick Forsyth, can be found here. I reprint it in its entirity. I find it much more eloquent in discrediting the British left than I have ever been. Say, don't most of the statements below apply to the American left as well?
Dear Mr President,
Today you arrive in my country for the first state visit by an American president for many decades, and I bid you welcome.
You will find yourself assailed on every hand by some pretty pretentious characters collectively known as the British left. They traditionally believe they have a monopoly on morality and that your recent actions preclude you from the club. You opposed and destroyed the world's most blood-encrusted dictator. This is quite unforgivable.
I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.
It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second.
Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il... and hate a God-fearing Texan. So hallelujah and have a good time.
We also have this, from a builder named, coincidentally enough, George Bush.
Dear George,
I would like to welcome you to our country. Both as a person and a president, you are a nice guy, and it is a good idea for both yourself and the people of England that you have taken the time to come over to visit our country. I am a self-employed person, and have been getting quite a lot of free advertising from your being in the public light for many years now. I would like to thank you for that. Only the other day I heard someone say on the radio: "George Bush, he's doing a guvvy [Newcastle slang, meaning a little job for oneself] job. I've just seen him parked outside the house!" I would have voted for you, George. I think your father was nice as well, when he was president about 10 years ago. Although my family and friends vary a little in their opinion, I think you are the right man for the job.
Next, we have the editor of Prospect, David Goodhart, who seems to express reservations at Bush's policy, but makes a critically important point, namely that we finish the job in Iraq, rather than cutting and running as they are talking about (although they mention speeding up the timetable for Iraqi self-government, rather than cutting and running).
Dear President Bush,
Welcome to London. I will not be marching against you, but I know that quite a few readers of Prospect will be. Many of them are precisely those "sophisticated Europeans" you like to mock. And I can understand some of your irritation towards us. If Al Gore had done what you have just done in Afghanistan and Iraq (which he might well have done), we would be lining the Mall hailing him as a liberator. Moreover, many of us "sophisticated Europeans" have a rather unsophisticated view of you. Your unpopularity here is, in part, an expression of a culture gap between British and American politics.
In Britain, because of the historical importance of parliament, we place a higher value on verbal fluency in our national leaders. American leaders often sound more like Joe Public but they have other leadership qualities that are less visible: impressive in small groups, focused, good judgment. The idea that you are a cipher for the people around you has also been proved wrong in the past few months: Rumsfeld, Cheney and Powell have all, at different times, been put in their place, and those famous neoconservatives are not at all happy about the direction of the Iraq occupation.
And therein could lie the tragedy of your presidency. You may not be a slave to any faction but after 9/11 you did seem to embrace the neo-conservative vision of spreading democracy and markets on the back of America's unrivalled military power. Many of us "sophisticated Europeans" thought it was a hubristic vision and still don't understand why the tried and tested multilateralism of the postwar period would not also work for the war on terrorism.
Nevertheless, some of us also found it hard not to admire the boldness of that vision to liberate Iraq and transform the Middle East. You took a gamble - a lot of people warned you it would be a big and bloody one - but if you don't follow through and create a stable, democratic Iraq, you will leave the Middle East more dangerous than before and the international system badly damaged for no good reason. You will have made America look like a dumb bully that just lashes out without thinking. In other words, you will have proved all us "sophisticated Europeans" right. Please don't.
Then we come to this, from an English rabbi, Dr Sidney Britcho:
Dear President Bush,
Sadly, your visit will be marred by a large demonstration opposing your presence in this country. This should not deter you in your policy to continue your fight against the terrorist forces that are seeking to weaken the strength of liberal democratic principles, whose implementation is the only hope for achieving world harmony.
Please appreciate that those protesting against you are also the same individuals who opposed the British government joining the coalition to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Be resolute in winning the peace in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan by creating there the basis for representative governments, which will in turn set an example to the other peoples of the region. Whatever the sacrifices, do not leave before the job is done.
There is also a fourth page of letters to the president, including one from the London representative of the Palestinian Authority, claiming that by supporting Israel, Bush puts America at odds with the Arab and Muslim worlds. To that charge I will respond thusly: Maybe. But what puts the two groups at odds much more than America's support of Israel (which includes an acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist) is Islam's continuing bloody expansion, looking for a Muslim empire. Arabs, at the edges of their Muslim empire, have attacked:
- Anglicans in Africa, including in the Sudan and Nigeria
- Catholics in the former French West Africa (Mali, Chad), and in the Philippines and Indonesia
- Jews in Israel
- Orthodox in the former Soviet republics, especially Georgia and Armenia, I believe, and also in Greece
- Hindus and Sikhs in India
- Zoroastrians in Pakistan and India
- Buddhists in India and Indonesia
Need I go on? The problem is that some members of the "Religion of Peace" have chosen to fight the war to have the entire world live under sharia, denying them basic human freedoms, so that they will be able to live under a 1400 year old code of laws. Bully for them. I suggest that the PA stop these Islamists who would wish to seek empire (and another question is why they're not being called on it, unlike Bush and Blair are being called on these false charges of empire?); at which point, America would be morally bound to throw its support toward a resolution fair to both sides.
As a parting thought, it's unsurprising to note - yet good for the soul, ego, whatever - that there are indeed Britons who support our actions in the Middle East.
More later,
R.
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