Archiv der Kategorie: USA

Iraq, oddly enough, USA

Joey Tribiani in Iraq.

There is an episode of the tv series “friends” in which some of the friends are playing a game for which they have to write a list of all US states. Ross Geller phd is struggling with his last one. He simply can’t remember one of those little ones. So eventually he gives up and asks Joey how many he had remembered. Joey instantly replies – all of them. All 56. Laughter.

In a different episode, after having confessed his love to Rachel and having been rejected, Joey thinks about emigrating to – Vermont (and getting Vermont Dollars ;-)). Laughter, again.

In light of this recent poll by the US edition of National Geographic, I wonder how many people in the audience actually did get those jokes?

When young Americans were asked to find ten specific states on a map of the United States, only California and Texas could be located by a large majority, only 51% could find New York and only 30% New Jersey, the state just across the river.

Slightly disturbing, I have to say, but no reason to be too smug – those states can be tricky, after all… But there was also an international element to the survey, which finally provides a good reason for Western military involvement overseas – as educational policy – and that clearly not only for young Americans: The survey asked young people in the Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Britain and the United States to answer 56 geographic and current event questions. Sweden won the contest with a score of 40, followed by Germany and Italy with 38 each. On average, the American youngsters answered 23 questions correctly.

Another striking detail: according to the survey, only 13% of those surveyed knew where to find Iraq, 17% in the case of Afghanistan. Both countries have been covered intensely in the media over the last few months. A significant number of Americans are still fighting in Afghanistan, an even more significant number might be fighting in Iraq soon. So if those 13% are any indication of the general geographical knowledge in the US (specific figures for the other countries haven not been indicated) then I can’t avoid the question why a majority of people (more or less) supports an armed intervention in a country they can’t even find on a map. I have no real answer to that question.

But Michael Moore has some. And I watched his answer last night – “Bowling for Columbine” is quite a documentary. I will document my thoughts on it later. Just one thing, for him, it’s about fear. Fear that creates a vicious circle of ever growing fear. But there’s a lot more to it, so I will stop here for today.

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German Politics, Germany, Iraq, Political Theory, US Politics, USA

A deeper rift? Some context…

Firstly, a noteworthy article by Robert Kagan concerning the fundamental policy-style differences between Europe and the US, published in May in the Washington Post.

Secondly, The Economist’s analysis of these differences. Thirdly, a paper called “Mutual Perceptions” by Peter Rudolf of the German Institute for Foreign and Strategic Policy (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin), presented at a conference of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies on Sept. 10, 2002.

Some key quotes from the latter :

“The American and the European publics, including the German public are also not so far apart in their view of the world. They do not live on different planets, the one on Mars, the other on Venus, as Robert Kagan`s now famous dictum says. Looking at the collective preferences on both sides of the Atlantic, we are no way drifting apart. In their majority, Americans and Europeans do share a positive view of international institutions, Americans are more multilateral than unilateral oriented; Europeans, even Germans, are by far less opposed to the use of military force, although they are inclined to support it for humanitarian purpose and for upholding international law. Although the use of military means for combating terrorism finds support among a majority of people across Europe, the preferred measures to combat terrorism lie – to a greater extent than among Americans – in the economic realm: in helping poor countries to develop their economies. Thus, Americans and Germans do not live on different planets but those neoconservatives do, those – to quote former President Carter – “belligerent and divisive voices” now seemingly dominant in Washington, those whose vision of America`s role in the world implies a basic strategic reorientation of American foreign policy. Using the dramatically increased perception of vulnerability to asymmetric threats and instrumentalizing the “war on terror” as the legitimizing principle, the hegemonic – or better: the imperial – wing of the conservative foreign policy elite effectively dominated the political discourse and left its imprint on a series of decisions..” (p. 2)

“Should the neoconservatives succeed in turning the United States into a crusader state waging so-called preventive wars, German-American relations will head to further estrangement. If the current debate on Iraq is indicative of things to come, the expectation of American neoconservatives that their European allies will in the end jump on the bandwagon might be disappointed, at least in the German case. In their despise of their irrelevant amoral European allies and in their overconfidence in American hard power resources, they simply ignore the value dimension of the current transatlantic conflicts. It is a conflict about different visions of world order.” (p. 6)

Lastly, for those who can read German, another SWP study – “Preventive war as solution? The USA and Iraq.” For those who don’t read German, the footnotes are a remarkable collection of mostly English language documents concerning the intra-US-administrative discussion as well as the international one. I’ll probably post some key references later.

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Iraq, US Politics, USA

Somebody help me, I don’t quite understand

This entry is about the “poisoned relations” (Condoleeza Rice, Sept 21) between the US administration and the old (and new) German government. OK, I can understand a certain confusion about the comments allegedly made by (now former) Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (not Interior Minister, as Ms Rice indicated in the interview on Sept 21.). According to one local German newspaper she mentioned during a campaign speech addressing a union assembly in her constituency that the US administration were using the Iraq-war-issue to distract from domestic problems. This, she allegedly said, is a common tactic which had also been employed by Hitler.

No one seems to know the exact words of her statement, as it was a print journalist reporting who did apparently not use a recording device during the event. But the problem at hand is not factual accuracy.

If anybody knows about foreign policy, it is Condoleeza Rice. A lot of governments have stressed foreign policy questions during elections. It’s somewhat an executive privilege. Actually, Schroeder has done precisely that in recent weeks. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher had an entire war to distract from the economic problems her policies caused in the UK. And there can be no question about the importance of a possible war with Iraq on the current electoral agenda in the US. Last Saturday, the NY Times reported just about an inch right of the article about Ms Däubler-Gmelin’s alleged remarks that the President’s party is gaining from the “war talk” using the headline “G.O.P. Gains From War Talk. But Does Not Talk About It”. The fair question therefore seems to be not if, but to which extent the war talk is a campaigning issue.

Whatever it was Herta Däubler-Gmelin said, it was no personal comparison of Bush and Hitler. But it was most certainly an extremely stupid thing to say given the current climate. Politics is not academia. It is not about being right.

Well, the current “poisoned” climate. How did it come about? The Bush hawks say, getting rid of Saddam is not an ‘if’-question, but a question of ‘when’. Public discourse: Saddam’s Iraq is a member of the Axis of Evil, a supporter of terrorism and in possession of weapons of mass destruction (now widely known as WMD) which he is ready to use against Israel and the Western world. But the evidence provided for this claim is, until today, rather sketchy. Even Blair’s documentation, published earlier today, has apparently added only very little to the publicly available information concerning the Iraqi threat. Let’s face it, while the Iraqi dictatorship certainly poses a threat to stability in the Middle East, there is no clear-cut Saddam-induced publicly available answer explaining why war with Iraq should suddenly have become unavoidable. However, it has become the single most important issue on the global political agenda these days.

Europeans, currently very sensitive to the increasing hollowing out of political sovereignty on US-terms, have been critical of the US proposal to oust Saddam. Schroeder, fighting a campaign, opposed the US initiative fervently, in an attempt to win the support of the generally anti-war oriented German public. He said that Germany would not participate in any military action against Iraq. His statement has probably also been informed by the dismal state of the German forces. All available crisis reaction forces are already deployed on the Balcans and in Afghanistan and Kuwait (ISAF and Enduring Freedom). Besides, the US military does not seem to be in need of military aid. So it’s all about showcase support and a political coalition backing US use of force against Iraq. Schroeder said no. Some people say it is not wise to rule out military options in order to keep pressure on Iraq and I agree. In this respect the current quarrels are truly lamentable. But it is also true that the current discourse in Washington is not about building a credible threat to usher Saddam into cooperation with the UN or is it? Unfortunately, Schroeder’s current position is also somewhat incoherent, offering military support after a possible UN mandated military intervention in Iraq – but not for the mission itself. Such a policy is certainly designed to isolate Germany in the interntional community.

But that’s not what is poisoning the climate. It is rather the way in which the US administration is interpreting its leadership of the West in their “with us or without us”-way, inspired by their vision of “moral clarity”, sulking as soon as an ally has a different opinion. I hope that the recent behavior exhibited by the US administration is not what the unipolar world order will be about: That friends are entitled to their own opinion, as long as it is the same the current US administration holds. Of course, the First Amendment to the US constitution is not supposed to guarantee freedom of speech in other countries. That is quite a clear position, it is, however, not necessarily a moral one. From my perspective GW Bush’s “smoking gun” executives seem to suffer from a lack of manners, starting with public interferences into German politics by US ambassador and Friend Of GW Dan Coats, who does not speak German at all, to Donald Rumsfeld, who would not speak to German defense minister Peter Struck during this week’s Nato meeting.

I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand that behavior. And luckily, a lot of people in the US appear to not understand it either, as Maureen Dowd’s (very funny) column “No more Bratwurst” indicates. Recommended reading.

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almost a diary, traveling, USA

Ground Zero. Again.

Webcam viev of Ground Zero.

I hate it to write entries twice. The first version of this one was killed in the lovely Apple Falgship Store in Soho earlier this afternoon by my failure to honour the subtle differences in operating OS X (Ctrl & C resp. V on a PC is Apple & C resp. V on a Mac – you better keep that in mind…). So here we go again.

Today, on the way to the Staten Island Ferry I went to see Ground Zero. I wonder how many pictures of construction sites I had taken until today. The answer is probably – none. The construction site is massive. But if you’d take away some of the surrounding buildings built after the WTC, the pictures I took today would probably look quite similar to those taken during the early stages of the Trade Centre’s initial construction back in the 1970s. A visitor from outer space would certainly not understand why thousands of people would be lining this particular construction site at any given time. But everyone living on this planet knows why they honour the thousands of innocent people who either jumped or were buried under countless tons of concrete, steel and broken glass when the twin towers crumbled after being hit by two planes hijacked by Al Quaeda terrorists, on September, 11th, 2001. Everyone living on this planet knows what happenend, what was there and what is no longer.

But isn’t it interesting that empty space can mean so much? Isn’t it good to know that the meaning people attribute to the New York’s deep scar is much stronger than that of the supposed incarnation of materialism could have possibly been?

At Ground Zero, there’s a billboard attached to the scaffolding of one of the surrounding buildings. It says something like ‘the importance of things is not the size of the act, but the size of the heart’. Normally, that’s nothing but a cheesy line. But to those standing there, it does mean something. And to them, it’s true. But then, somewhere in the Middle East, there will probably be another billboard. Stating the same cheesy line or – the same truth. Next to a picture of Mohammed Atta.

And while it’s obvious who’s right and who’s wrong when you’re standing on Cortland Street – if this world can’t solve it’s bad case of heartache, it does not take much to predict that many more innocent people are going to die.

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traveling, USA

Me & NYC,

It’s sunday morning, and I am sitting in a coffee shop on Tompkin Square Park in New York’s East Village writing my first blog entry from abroad.

Actually, there’s not a lot to be said as of yet. Yesterday night, I drank my first beer out of a paper bag, in the middle of Williamsburg Brdige, with an amazing view on lower Manhatten and up the East River. Then there was this strange homeless person telling us for about 20 minutes about how he had figured the 911 events out – conspiracy theories are always funny. If I had a digital camera, I could regale you with his appearance, but I don’t, so you’ll have to wait. Drinking beer out of a bag was a must-do in the US, of course. I had not yet done that. I really wonder why I did not do that in 1998.

I haven’t been to Ground Zero yet, but I will certainly do that at some point. Life here seems so detached from the 911 events, I can hardly believe it. Two Australians I talked to yesterday told me they hardly noticed anything even last Wednesday. But there are tons of flags and postcards. All the street-painters now have cheesy WTC paintings on stock. All the fire vans feature a waving US flag now. But that’s it.

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traveling, USA

September 6, 1998,

is a day only very few people will be able to remember. I hardly could until I forced myself to. It was on that day, only three days after I first came to the United States, that I went up to the “Top of the World” as the visitor platform of the World Trade Centre was called. So far, I spent 36 hours in New York City and I did not see much of it yet (I will be there again this Friday). But I have seen the Twin Towers before they tumbled on that other, tragic day in September last year. This is a picture I took on September 6, 1998.

the twin towers

On September 11, 2001, I was luckily not anywhere close to the towers. But too many were. A lot has been said and written about how the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have been the triggers for the creation of the unipolar new world order (quite literally) which we are witnessing. And a lot more needs to be said and written and done.

But today is not for words or deeds. Today is a day of silent remembrance of the terror inflicted on thousands of innocent people, mostly Americans. I am grateful I did not lose anyone I know personally. But too many people I know did lose someone. I can hardly imagine their pain. And whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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US Politics, USA

1+1=2?

1 : Enlightening, isn’t it? Well, think of it that way: This week’s edition of “Die Zeit” features an interview with Samuel Huntington (reminder: “Clash of Civilisations”). Huntington basically states that a relatively young demographic structure is a necessary, albeit not sufficient condition for countries to be aggressive. Older people usually sit in comfortable chairs and don’t fight against each other.

He makes that point using the example of 19th century Europe’s demographic shifts and the subsequent wars in the first part of the 20th century. It’s a theory – and I can tink of the situations to which he probably refers, eg India vs Pakistan: Very young countries, and also countries with way too many guys without girls – a consequence of the abortion rate and infanticide of girls – looking for ways to prove themselves outside a relationship. That is certainly a useful resource for troublemakers of all kind – and probably what Huntington is thinking about. But…

+1 : Last week’s edition of “The Economist” was about the apparent “demographic miracle” happening in the US. As opposed to pretty much all other industrialised countries have the US succeeded in reversing the ageing trend and can boast an increasing birth rate. So…

=2 ?: Take Huntington and the US birthrates, put it together and you can come up with all sorts of ideas what the underlying reasons for the urgent need to fight yet another war actually are…

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USA

Tough Times Ahead For Napsters?

The US might begin to indict p2p users for criminal charges who share (offer – not download) copyrighted material in excess of $1000, US deputy attorney general John Malcom said today (link in German).

I would recommend to have a look at the transaction cost theory literature before publicly stating stuff like that. But as you might remember from earlier statements: It’s a war out there and in a war, only very few people behave rationally…

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USA

Times are(n’t) a changing?

I am reading William Easterly’s account of the “Elusive Quest For Growth” in the developing world. This is a quote from page 25.

“On March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast, a small British colony became the first nation of sub-Saharan Africa to gain its independence. I renamed itself Ghana. […] Vice President Richard nixon led the American delegation. (According to one source, Nixon asked a group of black journalists, ‘What does it fell like to be free?’ ‘We don’t know,’ they replied, ‘we’re from Alabama.’)”

Thought it’s worth noting after yesterday’s entry about the NYTimes article about that imaginary homicide case in Alabama.

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USA

Civil Right (wings) in the US.

JustitiaSeriously, what is going on with civil rights in the US? Last week I already reported NYTimes articles regarding the jailing of half a community of apparently innocent black people for alleged drug dealing in Tulia, Texas, US.

Now the NYTimes reports another instance of “jurisprudence” that makes me want to vomit. This time the incident has been taking place in Alabama. Apparently, three mentally ill black people have been talked into confessing to manslaughter of a non-existing baby and have accordingly been punished. It’s so absurd I can hardly believe it.

I must state, of course, the disclaimer that no legal system is free of flaws (implied in the word ‘system’, which in essence means that general rules are applied to individual cases in order to keep the complexity manageable. It seems therefore unavoidable to accept that a certain number of individual cases will not be dealt with adequately in any system (legal, mental, social or digital, etc.).

But that recourse is only available to non-abusive, non-biased legal systems in VERY few, VERY problematic cases. The one noted above does not seem to be difficult. But it does seem racially biased.

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