Geodog

Al Capone shouldn't represent the United States

Fareed Zakaria has a great article, The Arrogant Empire, in this week's Newsweek. Answers the questions, "why are all those foreigners against us?" and "how can they think that George Bush is a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein?" I learned a lot from reading it. Highly Recommended.. Some quotes:

In fact, while the United States has the backing of a dozen or so governments, it has the support of a majority of the people in only one country in the world, Israel. If that is not isolation, then the word has no meaning....

the United States will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of the world put together (yes, all 191 countries...

go back to 1945. When America had the world at its feet, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman chose not to create an American imperium, but to build a world of alliances and multilateral institutions. They formed the United Nations, the

Bretton Woods system of economic cooperation and dozens of other international organizations. America helped get the rest of the world back on its feet by pumping out vast amounts of aid and private investment. The centerpiece of this effort, the Marshall Plan, amounted to $120 billion in today’s dollars....

But FDR understood that American power had to be coupled with a generosity of spirit.

In its first year the administration withdrew from five international treaties—and did so as brusquely as it could. It reneged on virtually every diplomatic effort that the Clinton administration had engaged in, from North Korea to the Middle East, often overturning public statements from Colin Powell supporting these efforts. It developed a language and diplomatic style that seemed calculated to offend the world....

September 11 only added a new layer of assertiveness to Bush’s foreign policy. Understandably shocked and searching for responses, the administration decided that it needed total freedom of action. When NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked the self-defense clause and offered America carte-blanche assistance, the administration essentially ignored it. It similarly marginalized NATO in the Afghan war....

Donald Rumsfeld often quotes a line from Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone." But should the guiding philosophy of the world’s leading democracy really be the tough talk of a Chicago mobster? In terms of effectiveness, this strategy has been a disaster. It has alienated friends and delighted enemies. Having traveled around the world and met with senior government officials in dozens of countries over the past year, I can report that with the exception of Britain and Israel, every country the administration has dealt with feels humiliated by it.