Re: A frightening picture of American superiority

But for all of Johann Hari's supposed insight, including acknowledgement of
U.S. government practices in overthrowing and controlling government from
Iran to Chile to Vietnam--------after all that, Johann Hari concludes that
he will support a U.S. attack on Iraq. He may be surprised that a fictional
slightly left-leaning "President" would take such a pro-war stand against
Arabs, but then again, we might be surprised that a "left leaning" writer
like Hari would conclude his "left" critique of U.S. pro-war culture with:

"....the Iraqi people loathe Saddam Hussein and desperately want the US's
help in liberating them from this tyrant. Even when I support the US - as I
will in the coming months over Iraq - it doesn't mean that I am so naïve or
credulous that I think the US is perfect or even especially good."


Alan Spector

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----- Original Message -----
From: Saima Alvi
To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 2:14 AM
Subject: A frightening picture of American superiority


A frightening picture of American superiority
Even a fictional character seen as so left-wing that he is unelectable
spouts a chilling foreign policy
Johann Hari
05 February 2003
It isn't easy for those of us in Britain to try to understand what has been
happening to the American psyche over these past few surreal years. From the
presidential election where the guy with half a million fewer votes ended up
in the White House, to 11 September, where in one morning more people died
as a result of terrorism than in Northern Ireland for the past 30 years, to
the current progress towards war on Saddam Hussein: it is hard to make
sense, even as a regular visitor, of what is going on there.
Yet two small but revealing weathervanes return to our television screens in
the next week. The West Wing and 24 both launch new seasons, and they tell
us a great deal about our Stateside cousins.
The West Wing has been derided in the States as preposterously liberal; it
is often referred to as "the left wing". It follows the presidency of Jeb
Bartlett, a former governor of New Hampshire and the most left-leaning
president since Kennedy (or even Roosevelt).
On domestic policy, it is impossible for lefties like me not to be stirred
to tears by the show, as Bartlett and the crew of saints who man his West
Wing stand up to Christian fundamentalists, protect social security, fight
child poverty and fend off the incursions of the US's especially rabid
right-wing.
The extent to which this White House is so completely different to Bush's -
which has just delivered a massive tax cut, 45 per cent of which goes to the
richest 1 per cent of US citizens - is underlined by the fact that
Bartlett's Republican opponent for the presidency is so obviously based on
Dubya. He is a dumb, folksy southern governor who is told by Bartlett, "I
don't mind that you don't know much, but you've turned knowing nothing into
a kind of Zen thing." One of the most depressing experiences in life is
getting to the end of an episode of the show feeling a warm glow, and then
realising that George Junior is still sitting in the real Oval Office.
Yet look at what has happened to The West Wing's depiction of US foreign
policy. Even a fictional character who is seen as so left-wing that he is
unelectable spouts a chilling, implicitly racist foreign policy. In the last
episode of the third series, Barlett has to authorise the assassination of a
pro-terrorist figure in an Arab government. He agonises for days, and then,
when he is finally called upon to give the order, he asks gravely, "But
doesn't this make us just like all the other nations?"
The fact that even a sophisticated, liberal American audience can hear this
without either gasping or bursting into laughter is a sign of how blinkered
Americans still are about their foreign policy legacy. Bartlett is meant to
be a Nobel-prize winning economist. He would know that the US intervened in
Iran in 1953 to overthrow the democratically elected, popular and reformist
leader Mohammed Mossadeq and install the undemocratic and unpopular Shah,
Reza Pahlavi. This set in train events that led to the rise of the Ayatollah
Khomeini. He would know that the US intervened in Chile in 1973 to overthrow
the democratically elected Salvador Allende and install the fascist Augusto
Pinochet. He would know about Vietnam, for God's sake. He would know that
the US to this day gives free rein to Ariel Sharon to murder Palestinian
civilians.
The mindset which unconsciously informs Bartlett's actions, just as much as
the current administration's, is what Edward Said has identified as
"American fundamentalism": the equation of what is good for America
axiomatically with what is good for the world. It is captured in a line from
the musical Miss Saigon, which is meant to be ironic but which I have heard
applauded by US audiences post-11 September: "But I'm an American/ I can't
do wrong." It is the implicit belief that the US - because its collective
identity is based on universal values embodied in the Constitution, not any
concept of race or inherent belonging - will always act morally in its
external affairs.
The West Wing shows the worrying extent to which American imperialism is
based not only on a genuine desire to help other countries (and, yes, many
decent Americans do actually believe this, and they are sometimes right;
they are not all isolationist hicks) but also on a sense of essential
superiority.
In an episode called "A Proportional Response", Bartlett finds out that his
personal physician, amongst others, has been murdered on a trip to the
Middle East. His security chiefs recommend "a proportionate response" to the
American deaths, but Bartlett shouts that he wants "a disproportionate
response". He explains, "Under the Roman empire, a Roman citizen could go
anywhere he wanted in the world, because all over the world people knew that
if they touched a citizen of Rome, the wrath of the entire Empire would rain
down upon them. That is how Americans should feel."
So he decides, basically, to bomb the hell out of the Middle East, until he
is finally talked round. Remember: this mindset is prevalent even in the
Democratic Party.
Both The West Wing and 24 also reveal a view of US politics so naïve and
romantic that it is scarcely a development on Frank Capra's Mr Smith Goes to
Washington. David Palmer, the Democratic senator who is running for
President in the first series of 24 (he has been elected in time for the
second series), is also a Bartlett-like saint.
He is amazed when the people who bankrolled his campaign want something back
from him, just as Bartlett decides, absurdly, that he cannot adopt a certain
policy simply on the grounds that it would benefit a campaign contributor!
The implication is that the problem with US politics is merely that its
politicians have shown insufficient moral rectitude, and that if they were
simply good men like Palmer and Bartlett (both of whom eschew spin-doctors,
who are depicted as sleazy and evil), the problems would disappear.
In fact, US politics is, as the brave Republican senator John McCain has
argued for years, systematically corrupt. Bill Clinton complained in 1995,
justly, that he had to spend so much time raising money for his next
presidential bid that neither he nor Al Gore had any time to actually do any
governing. McCain has just piloted reforms into US law that limit the power
of big money; its role in determining the US policy agenda is still
breathtaking. Nobody even seems surprised any more when their President
tours the country and addresses not crowds of citizens but only fund-raising
meetings with massive entrance fees. It is unsurprising that politicians who
owe their position to millionaires and who speak almost exclusively to
millionaires end up governing in the interests of millionaires.
This does not mean that we must adopt a knee-jerk position in opposition to
everything the US does. Many writers - from John Pilger, who recently
described the US as akin to the Third Reich, to Harold Pinter, who says
Blair acted in Kosovo because "he loves to drop a few bombs, it gives him, I
think, great excitement" - have adopted the inverse of American
fundamentalism. They see everything that the US does as simply evil, and
therefore ignore, for example, the fact that the Iraqi people loathe Saddam
Hussein and desperately want the US's help in liberating them from this
tyrant. Even when I support the US - as I will in the coming months over
Iraq - it doesn't mean that I am so naïve or credulous that I think the US
is perfect or even especially good. Even if Bartlett were President, it
would still be a deeply flawed and frightening country.
johann@johannhari.com
http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/johann_hari/story.jsp?s
tory=375609




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