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Though some will consider this neoconservative strategy as plausible, it ignores several key factors.
- The analogy with Japan and Germany is misleading, as political circumstances were distinctly different sixty years ago. After WW2 for most parts of the world the US was still seen as a liberator, a country that had thrown off its own colonialist shackles and who sought in an idealistic fashion, freedom and self-determination for others. However the perception of the US in 1945 is not the same as its perception in 2004. As Suzanne Nossel writing in the 2004 spring edition of Foreign Affairs says, “After WW2 most of the world viewed the US as a rightful victor over tyranny, today America is seen as an oppressor, hungry for oil and power.”
- Secondly the events that unfolded in Algeria in 1988 still resonate within the Islamic world; the view that western states prefer secular dictators to Islamic states is not just rooted in perception. The current attitude to Uzbekistan where the need for Uzbek cooperation and logistics has meant overlooking the repression of thousands of Muslims who support the establishment of an Islamic state also gives no confidence. As one commentator put it “Ironically, U.S. efforts to fight terrorism have resulted in the fostering rather than diminution of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. Washington's embrace of sordid governments such as the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan, its silence regarding Russian brutality in Chechnya, and other distasteful, albeit perhaps necessary, concessions needed to ensure vital cooperation against Al Qaeda are paradoxically bolstering Al Qaeda's claims that the United States supports the oppression of Muslims and props up brutal governments.”
- The analogy with the fall of the Soviet Union also ignores some key differences. It was clear that the citizens of the former Soviet Union and her satellite countries in Eastern Europe looked up to the West as being beacons of liberty and economic opportunity. The capitalist bloc had long won the ideological battle for hearts and minds over its communist rival; this more than anything brought the Berlin wall down. Citizens of the Islamic world however have a completely different perspective towards the West. As Marshall says “after 1989 the people of those (Eastern and Central Europe) nations felt grateful to the United States because we helped liberate them from their Russian colonial masters…The same is unlikely to happen if we help ‘liberate’ Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The tyrannies in these countries are home grown and the US government has supported them, rightly or wrongly, for decades even as we’ve ignored (in the eyes of Arabs) the plight of the Palestinians. Consequently, the citizens of these countries generally hate the United States and show strong sympathy for Islamic radicals.”
- US credibility is also lost when people see the day by day erosion by so called liberal states of the very values that they seek to propagate to the Muslim world. People are increasingly questioning that if western values born from the golden period of enlightenment and defended in two world wars at the cost of millions of soldiers are so rooted in principle, how have they been cast aside so expediently in the last few years. This is not just an argument that stems from the Islamic world but is now increasingly being heard within the corridors of the western body politic. As Will Hutton says, “More than two years after 11 September, the tally of core western values and beliefs that we have allowed to become corrupted as we respond is lengthening by the week. Equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair trial - all have been seen as expedients to be put aside.” He goes on to say, “We are undermining our own civilisation.” Guantanamo Bay, the human rights abuses in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, the rounding up of thousands under draconian legislation and the unpopular Patriot Act have all damaged the reputation of the US and her allies and led many to question the Machiavellian usage of western values.
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