An open question about anti-Americanism
The Newsweek controversy doesn’t really interest me that much — Jack Shafer’s take sounds about right to me. I’m more interested in the point Anne Applebaum made yesterday in the Washington Post: But surely the larger point is not the story itself but that it was so eminently plausible, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and everywhere else. ...
The Newsweek controversy doesn't really interest me that much -- Jack Shafer's take sounds about right to me. I'm more interested in the point Anne Applebaum made yesterday in the Washington Post:
The Newsweek controversy doesn’t really interest me that much — Jack Shafer’s take sounds about right to me. I’m more interested in the point Anne Applebaum made yesterday in the Washington Post:
But surely the larger point is not the story itself but that it was so eminently plausible, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and everywhere else. And it was plausible precisely because interrogation techniques designed to be offensive to Muslims were used in Iraq and Guantanamo, as administration and military officials have also confirmed.
This resonates with a question Susanne Nossel asked here last week:
Does the rise in anti-Americanism concern you? If so, do you link it to the Bush Administration?s policies? Even if you don?t think it?s a major issue that should be guiding policy choices, do you think it matters at the margins and can make it tougher to build support for U.S. goals?
Let me put this more bluntly: assume that the Newsweek goof was of the maximal variety — i.e., despite Gitmo prisoner claims, it turns out that no Qu’ran was ever flushed down any toilet. Should it nevertheless be considered a major foreign policy problem that this report triggered significant protests in Afghanistan, a populace with good reasons to support the United States? In today’s New York Times, David Brooks is right to point out the blogosphere’s misplaced foci, and suggests that “radical clerics in Afghanistan” used the story to trigger outrage. What bothers me is that it was too damn easy for the clerics to whip up anti-American sentiment. I leave it to my readers: am I overly concerned about this?
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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