Posted on 09/02/2004 5:35:15 AM PDT by kattracks
Vienna — Europe is Kerry country, and folks like Heike Warmuth reckon they have a chance to spoil U.S. President George W. Bush's bid for a second term.Even as Republicans fête the American leader at their national convention in New York, people across Europe — where Bush is often derided as reckless and ignorant — are rallying to the cause of lifting Democratic contender John Kerry to victory.
”The choice of a U.S. president is not something that affects America alone,” said Ms. Warmuth, a founder of the Austrian website ”Europeans against Bush,” which is designed to swing undecided Americans toward Mr. Kerry.
”American politics affect the whole world, whether we're talking war or peace or the international economy,” said Ms. Warmuth, who is also a member of Austria's Green Party.
Not all Europeans are as active in trying to unseat Mr. Bush as Ms. Warmuth, who spent thousands of dollars of her own money earlier this summer in New York City as a Kerry campaign volunteer.
But her anti-Bush inclination reflects the overwhelming sentiment throughout Western Europe, a region where politicians are often admired for eloquence, where there is deep anger at what is seen as American arrogance in Iraq and on other issues, and where contempt of Mr. Bush's perceived cowboy persona and mispronunciations runs strong.
”In no way would I vote for Bush,” said Christa Eden, a secretary in Frankfurt, Germany. ”He thinks that everything he does is right and tries to push it on the rest of the world.”
Among the established democracies of Western Europe, America's foreign policy and pop culture pre-eminence worldwide had left many citizens resentful on a deeper level — even before the U.S. invasion of Iraq turned public sentiment overwhelmingly against Mr. Bush.
Erica Gubinella, a sales assistant in central Rome, calls Bush ”a disgusting warmonger. Banker Massimo Spizzichi says with Bush, ”American politics has reached its lowest level.”
In France, polls have consistently shown that if the French had a say in the election's outcome, Mr. Kerry — appreciated, at the very least, for speaking French — would reap about 80 per cent of the vote. A poll commissioned by the German magazine Stern and published Wednesday had 81 per cent of 1,001 German respondents for Mr. Kerry and only 8 per cent for Mr. Bush. The margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points.
The continent's former communist countries — where the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan is well remembered for winning the Cold War — are less critical. After decades of Soviet domination, there is still an overflow of goodwill toward the United States, which for many in Eastern Europe evokes values like freedom, democracy, and unlimited opportunity.
That can translate into support for Mr. Bush.
”I would be for Bush because he does what he says ... and has no oscillations in his politics,” freelance journalist Lutfi Dervishi said in Tirana, Albania.
There are a few voices in Western Europe that have challenged Mr. Bush's bad image. Britain's left-leaning Guardian newspaper paused from its usual criticism of the U.S. administration this week and carried a commentary questioning the wisdom of Bush-bashing.
If ”Bush is dumb, dangerous and the rest of it, how is it that millions of intelligent and perfectly decent people in the U.S. see it so differently?” the commentary wondered.
Many Europeans are more likely to simply poke fun at Mr. Bush — or darkly question his motives.
In a joke on the German Lachmeister, or ”Laugh Master," website, the U.S. president expounds thus on his plans for Iraq: ”We'll divide it into three zones: regular, premium and diesel.”
Yeah well, European Citizens, America is not your Country, it is mine and I get to vote in the election. Nanner, nanner poo poo!
And soon it will be Muslim country.
EUrinal.
Stats.
51% Christian
49% Muslim
Soon to be reversed.
Enjoy your coming slavery Eurotrash.
Refresh my memory... Didn't the Germans elect Hitler?
And my memory also... When did Europeans acquire the right to vote in american elections?
And I for one am relieved.
What is reckless and ignorant is not joining the USA in the fight against terrorism, I would guess maybe they think it will go away if it is ignored.
Thank God WEuropeans dont get to vote in this country. Except I am no too sure maybe they can in Florida. Everybody else can there.
Yeah, well so is North Korea and China. And Iraq would have been under Sadaam except it isn't. Do I hear tin foil hat theories acomin.
Euro-peons hate us, but they flock over here looking for good paying jobs, and lower taxes. Lord knows you can't find a job in Eurabia, and if you do, you have to pay 90% of what you earn back to the state to support the hoards of Muslims living off their social programs. Eurabia is fast becomming a 3rd world country. Look how Germany suddenly became 'friendly' when Bush annouced a re-aliegnment of troops.
The world election
Europeans don't have a vote in the United States - but Americans do care what we think
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday September 2, 2004
The Guardian
Welcome to the most important American election in living memory. A world election, in which the world has no vote. Four more years of Bush can confirm millions of Muslims in a self-defeating phobia against the west, Europe in hostility to America, and the US on the path to fiscal ruin. Four more years, and the Beijing Olympics will see ascending China dictating its terms to a divided world. Don't be fooled by those who say that one lot is as bad as the other, or even, like the New Statesman's John Pilger, that Bush's re-election may be the lesser evil, because "supremacy is the essence of Americanism; only the veil changes or slips". Don't be put off by John Kerry's attempts to out-Bush Bush, as he attacks rather than applauds the president for inadvertently admitting that this "war on terror" cannot be "won" in the way that the second world war was won. Beyond the electoral posturing, Kerry knows that is true. As president, he would act accordingly, and the change would make a vast difference to every one of us.
The American election will have far more consequences for Europe than the last European elections. It's probably more important to Britain than the next British election. Yet there seems so little we can do to affect the outcome. We feel like a punter whose life savings have been invested in a bet on a single boxer in a single bout. All we can do is cheer our lungs out from the ringside. Except that if we shout too loudly for Kerry we may actually help the other man - especially if we shout in French.
Advertiser links Volunteer Work Abroad George Bush's chances of winning depend on convincing a sufficient number of American swing voters of the truth of his narrative about "America at war". While his close supporters fund accusations that John Kerry marginally falsified his own war story in Vietnam, the president's whole campaign is premised on selling a false war story.
"Like the second world war," he declared in mid-August, "the war we are fighting now began with a ruthless, surprise attack on America." Well, tell that to the Poles. (I'm writing this on the 65th anniversary of the true beginning of the second world war, which was indeed a ruthless, surprise attack - on Poland.) Or the British. Or the French. But for President Bush, the second world war began only with the Japanese attack on America at Pearl Harbor.
The contemporary analysis is as bad as the history. Again and again, the war on terror - Wot, in Washington shorthand - is compared to the second world war or the cold war. There's only one way to win the war on terror, his key political adviser Karl Rove told an audience of young Republicans in the run-up to the convention. And that is "to chase the enemy to the ends of the earth and utterly destroy him". Like the cowboy hero of a hundred westerns. At the convention, they rally support with a film of US army tanks advancing down a road and warships cutting through the seas. Bush's own re-election website (www.georgewbush.com) has a homepage link entitled "Winning the war on terror". Of course, Republican leaders can make more sophisticated arguments in private conversation, but this whole campaign depends on projecting a grand narrative in which the US is engaged in a conventional war, which it will win mainly by martial valour and force of arms.
But it isn't, and it won't. "Utterly destroy him," cries Karl Rove. But who is he? Osama bin Laden? A Palestinian suicide bomber? An Iranian mullah? The unknown terrorist? The whole point of this new kind of struggle is that there is no single clearly identifiable leader or regime, no Hitler or Soviet Union, who can be thus destroyed. (Obviously, capturing Osama bin Laden, if he's still alive, would certainly help.) And if we accept, as we should, that we face a serious array of new threats, among which Islamist terrorism plays an important part, what is the role of military force in reducing the threat? Much less than in earlier wars. If military force was 80% responsible for the west's victory in the second world war, and perhaps - through the impact on the Soviet Union of the arms race - 30% responsible for the west's victory in the cold war (and even that figure may be too high), it will only be 10% - or perhaps 15% - responsible for winning this one.
The victory will depend on courage, resolution, and a determination to defend what we value - American leaders are right to remind us of this. It will depend on skilled intelligence and police work. But it will depend, above all, on addressing the political and economic causes of terrorism, to dry the swamps in which al-Qaida mosquitoes breed, and preserving and unfolding the magnetic attractions of our own free societies. It's here that Bush has been such a disaster. He has presided over the largest build-up of the American military since the end of the cold war, and the swiftest, most comprehensive dismantling of the country's popularity in the world since Vietnam. In the weapons categories that really count, no one has done more to disarm America than George Bush.
A surprising number of Americans see this. In a recent Pew poll, 67% of those asked said that the US had become less respected in the world, and 43% thought this was a major problem. It's not just wishful thinking that makes Democrats constantly harp on the argument that Bush has ruined America's standing with its traditional allies and friends. They know it means votes.
So perhaps we are not such impotent bystanders at the ringside, after all. Yes, we don't have a vote. Yes, if we shout too loudly for Kerry it may help his opponent. But most Olympic contenders testify to the importance of the crowd. And this election, unusually for an American election, is as much about events and reactions outside America's borders as about anything at home, including even "the economy, stupid". In that same Pew poll, 41% of those asked say the most important problem facing the nation is "war/foreign policy/terrorism" against just 26% for economic issues.
It would obviously be disastrous if only those European countries that opposed the Iraq war now explicitly support Kerry. That would give credibility to the conservative senator Mitch McConnell's acid jibe that "Kerry wants to outsource our foreign policy to Paris and Berlin." It would be even worse if those countries that supported the Iraq war, especially Britain, Poland and Italy, did anything to suggest that Bush could carry on as he has since 2001 and still enjoy their support. No European government would be wise to endorse either candidate. They can leave that to us unofficial Europeans. But European leaders can spell out clearly the terms on which Europe stands ready to be a full partner of the US in reducing the threat of terrorism that concerns Europe at least as much as it does America. From the ringside of the world election, we should shout not for Europe, not for Bush, not even for Kerry, but for America to win. They'll know which America we mean.
· Timothy Garton Ash's new book, Free World: Why a Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our Time, was recently published by Penguin
www.freeworldweb.net
I just got back from visiting Europe for a couple of weeks. My wife is from The Hague and her parents and the rest of her family still live there. I drove around Europe for a week, beside the time I spent in Holland, but I did not spend one cent in France.
One evening in The Hague I went to a party and a lovely young thing approached me and announced that she was for Kennedy in the election.
I said that was fine, but there was no Kennedy running.
She walked off with a puzzled look on her face. A few minutes later, with a big smile on her face, she said that she was for Kerry. I said that was fine, that she could vote for Kerry and I would vote for Bush and we could see who wins. She then told me that she could not vote in the election.
I just smiled at her.
Um, I hate to break it to you European people, most Americans don't really care what you think.
His asinine website was ridiculous, but I stopped short when I read that Bush's admin "had undermined the electoral college system." How's that again? What idiots! Euroweenies are so predictably stupid, it's hard to figure out how to respond in words they can understand.
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