Not long after German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s declaration
that Germans and Americans must “work together to win the peace
in Iraq,” George W. Bush addressed the United Nations. A savvy president
would have seized the opportunity to mend fences with the world and our
closest allies by offering the proverbial olive branch, as he asked all
able nations for help in the rebuilding effort. But instead Bush told
the world that the United States was right to go to war against Iraq and
(by implication) everyone other than Great Britain and a few other “coalition”
nations was wrong.
Now Bush owes an apology to the United Nations and, in particular, two
of America’s closest allies: France and Germany. I am not optimistic
that President Bush would ever admit to mistreating America’s allies,
just as the president would never admit to a flawed policy in deciding
to go to war without broad, international support. But if this administration
were ever to apologize, an appropriate letter to France and Germany should
look something like this:
Just as the French have had national politics polluted by the divisiveness
of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front extreme right wing rhetoric so has
the U.S. also suffered under the politics of Republicans. We share similar
constitutional heritages with our founding father, Thomas Jefferson, a
one-time ambassador to France and the leading proponent of French style
democracy within the U.S. constitutional model. Our elections through
redistricting processes have allowed our Republican party to take advantage
of rural and working class districts' economic and social unrest to culminate
this right-wing politic much as the Republikaner (Republican) party of
Germany was able to do under Franz Schonhuber in the mid-eighties.
The U.S. Republican party is also a coalition of disparate groups including
religious zealots some of which support Israel as one more required step
in fulfilling a scriptural ingredient toward the end of the world. First
they die and then everyone else in a policy no less fanatical than that
found in radical Islam. The general message of our Republicans, like yours,
is one of unification of the disaffected opposed to the unfamiliar, which
includes immigrants that would threaten not only jobs, but now our very
existence as possible members of terrorist cells.
As the French newspaper Le Monde thankfully expressed it after the tragedy
of September 11, "We are all Americans." We appreciate President
Jacques Chirac's declaration of solidarity with "we are entirely
with the American people." We also thank the German people and for
the gestures of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in calling the attacks "cowardly"
and that "this battle that we are fighting along with our American
friends is not yet won - neither in Afghanistan nor anywhere else in the
world."
It was the blunder of this administration that was not popularly elected
that branded the leaders of new Europe "old." They were wrong
and we will work for their removal in the coming election so that we might
once again be able to move forward in our shared and enlightened Western
traditions with respect for the diversity of our views and cultures toward
a better tomorrow for all people.
A letter such as this could go a long way toward mending fences with France
and Germany. Unfortunately, given this administration’s track record
of never admitting mistakes or showing humility, I am not optimistic that
our allies will ever receive such a letter.
John Hawley lives in Jacksonville, Florida and is
new media writer and commercial website manager and developer for www.recalljeb.org
and www.downtobusiness.org
.
