He's Got A Little List

Moralist Robert Wright reviews a couple books in The New York Times on why everyone hates America. Wright knows that we've always been a target, perhaps never more so than when we became the world's only superpower. But that doesn't mean we still can't blame our Prez:

[Bush's] alleged failures in this regard have been so thoroughly discussed that we can save time by evoking them with keywords: "crusade," "evil," Kyoto, Iraq, Bolton, Geneva Convention and so on.

Let's look at this list a little more closely.

Bush used the word "crusade" once and regretted it. Mind you, it's a perfectly good word, it just has unfortunate connotations. For anyone to get bent out of shape by Bush's one-time use shows, at the very least, a lack of perspective.

On the other hand, Bush was right to call Iraq, Iran and North Korea "evil." I think the world's problems have been exacerbated more by the Western world's inability to call something evil than by overuse of the term.

The Kyoto Protocols were one of those bad ideas that Europeans love--it's too expensive, won't really solve the problem and, when you get down to it, won't really be followed. But it's symbolically good. I'm glad America wouldn't go along. (As long as we're talking about not voting with everyone else, why doesn't Wright mention Israel? Or would that give the game away.)

The Iraq war was the right thing to do, and I shudder to think what a situation the world would be in if any potential Saddam Hussein knew the worst he had to face was a vote in the UN. (And here's to the leaders who joined us, as unpopular as the war was to the European mindset. For taking a brave stance, they got to be called lapdogs, but that irony is lost on the pseudo-sophisticates over there.)

Bolton I don't have much to say about except he was a great pick. We need more men like him serving in government.

The Geneva Convention is a great idea, but a lot of people misunderstand it. The point is to give fighters who follow the rules of war (wear uniforms, not aim at civilians, etc.) good treatment if captured. Nothing will destroy the hopes represented by the Convention faster than giving everyone all these rights regardless of how they act. (I'm not saying I agree with everything the US government has done in treating war prisoners, by the way.)

So maybe these are the reasons they hate us. But they're also reasons to be proud of this country. I'd rather do what's right than win a popularity contest.