How Others See Us

Guatemala:

When photographs of the maltreatment of detainees at the Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib first appeared, the first reaction of United States authorities was to reject any implication that linked these practices to official military policy. Then, more than two years into the scandal, the photographs grew in number, and to these were added those of the gratuitous beatings by British soldiers, the torture of prisoners at the U.S. base in Guantánamo, and clandestine flights by the CIA over Europe - transporting prisoners to secret prisons.

The most despicable part of this is the moral double standard displayed by the governments in developed countries when, after ordering inhumane treatment against inhabitants of their colonies and countries that are economically dependent on them, (they) try to impose sanctions (on other governments) for violations of human rights......

Germany:

The United States is worried about its image abroad. Particularly in the Muslim world. But a massive propaganda offensive worth billions of dollars seeks to address the problem.

"Friendly contact with the Islamic world," is the secret marching order Bush has given the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA in carrying out the largest propaganda offensive since the end of the Cold War. "We must do more to confront hateful propaganda, dispel dangerous myths and get out the truth," says US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Americans hope that almost no one recognizes the broad reach of the PR machine. They haven't publicized the fact that thirty radio stations in Afghanistan have been financed with US aid. "We don't want people to recognize the participation of the US government and tune out," said Colonel James Treadwell, an expert in psychological warfare.

Indeed, the propaganda program is being eyed more critically since it became public that a company named Lincoln Group was paying Iraqi newspapers up to $2,000 for America-friendly articles and greasing journalists with $500 per month under orders from the Pentagon. In the past the Lincoln Group had been hired by the CIA to help the Iraqi National Congress in its campaign against Saddam Hussein before the war. The reports they produced then on Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction went too far even for Washington's intelligence apparatus.

France:

The clash of civilizations? It is certainly taking place, but who is involved? Three weeks after the outbreak of the troubles that transformed the controversy of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad into a spiral of violence across the globe, the debate has gone beyond the simple theory of a clash between Islam and the West. In displaying the progression of values in Europe and the United States, it exposes two other fractures: one in the midst of Western society and the other between the Muslims of Europe and those of the East, whether moderate or extremist.

From the start, the reactions of governments and Western media revealed a profound gap between Continental Europe and the United States, which later actions have not papered over. Motivated by its neoconservative convictions, the Bush Administration spontaneously and clearly expressed its religious solidarity with Muslims, offended by the caricatures and its regret at their publication in Europe. This reaction must be considered startling, given that the First Amendment permits one to say and write more or less anything one wants - even more so than in Europe. But the expression of solidarity comes from a country where religious expression is increasingly a basic element of public discourse, and where the status of the Fourth Estate has been seriously eroded over the last five years.

Posted on The Human Stain