I'm saddened, saddened that folks think I'm anti-American after calling Bush a failure at diplomacy. I'm not anti-American, I'm anti-, anti- hmm. I guess I AM anti-American. Hey, I support the troops. I support the troops doing what I don't think they should do.
When someone shifts their position on issue after issue, tactically, to always oppose US actions, while simultaneously excusing the same behaviors in others, provided they are not American - then one is in the presence of anti-Americanism as an ideology. When someone excuses behaviors they otherwise condemn in the strongest terms, simply because the misdeed is committed by a professed enemy of the US, or because the misdeed is decried by the US, one is in the presence of anti-Americanism as an ideology.
It is a diagnosis behind a clearly perceived lack of principle. An historical analogy may illustrate the point. When Germany and Russia signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939 and partitioned Poland, elements of the French left who had been outspoken opponents of Germany, champions of Poland, and hot for war to defend the smaller countries of eastern Europe against fascist aggression, turned on a dime overnight. They extolled pacifism, preached non-interference in eastern Europe, ridiculed Poland, and swallowed Russian propaganda claims wholesale. Then when Germany attacked Russia less than two years later, the same elements of the French left did an about face yet again.
These were clear signs of the presence of Communist ideology. The lack of principle in the succession of positions had a clear and simple explanation - they were taking their cues from the interests of Moscow, at every turn in the strategic road. An attempt to explain their behavior on any other basis - as consistent with principled pacifism, as changing diagnoses of the character of the German regime, as disagreements about the merits of individual disputes prior to each move in the broader war - made incoherent nonsense.
So, for example, when human rights groups that have denounced Saddam's human rights record for decades, detailing cases of torture, listening to testimony from refugees and survivors, cross checking them against capture documents, etc, were joined by the US, citing their own reports against Iraq, some of these groups turned right around and denounced the US for "using" them to "justify war". The sole rational purpose of cataloging such crimes and publicizing them in the west was obviously to encourage western governments to oppose and if possible overthrow Saddam. Yet confronted with that practical possibility, the very people who had spent decades of their lives working for exactly that end, denounced its possible achievement. This was a clear sign of anti-Americanism as an ideology.
Many groups on the left have been critical of lack of freedom for women in the Islamic world. Of religious fanaticism and enforced beliefs. Of tyranny. Of torture. Of chemical weapon use. Of military actions against subject minority populations. Saddam does all of these things and more, and as long as there is no immediately possibility of conflict, such groups opposed such things. But the instant the US takes the field against the regime sponsoring these practices, they go mute on the subject. They discover instead their allegiance to the 17th century concept of sovereignty, as Lincoln once described it: "if one man enslave another man, no third man shall object". This is a clear sign of the presence of anti-Americanism as an ideology.
A Quaker who has always been consistently pacifist is in my opinion misguided on an essential matter of justice and cannot be followed in matters of vital national interests. But there is nothing anti-American in a principled pacifism of this sort. But a pacifism that surfaces only when the US proposes to depose a dictator, but never shows itself when that dictator is killing a million men in a war with a neighboring state - simply because that state is not America - is not pacifism but anti-Americanism. A "pacifism" that justifies suicide bombings of innocent civilians as a "legitimate struggle", provided they are Jews, is not "pacifism".
A demand for "multilateralism" that is founded on a true belief in the inherent right of collective self defense, may be a principled thing. But a demand for "multilateralism" that is not satisfied by a coalition of 45 willing free nations is not a demand for "multilateralism". A desire for states to work through the UN security council in matters of war and peace may be a principled opinion (though to me a misguided one) about the conduct of international affairs. But when that desire is completely absent if France is dealing with the Ivory Coast, and appears only when the US is dealing with Iraq, then it is evidence of anti-Americanism as an ideology.
There is no great mystery about where anti-Americanism as an ideology comes from. For decades, the US led one side in a long confrontation of states and ideologies. The other side in that struggle employed every means it could to cultivate opposition to US power in the world. The means involved in all of that have not disappeared. Nor have the opinions that grew up in that period. In addition, many are uncomfortable with the scope of US power in the world after its success in that struggle. Some would have preferred a quite different outcome. This includes people here in the US, and others abroad.
There is nothing magical or mysterious about the existence of anti-Americanism as an organized body of opinion, therefore. A strong conviction that such opinions were widespread and strongly held was part of the political basis of Bin Laden and company's attacks on the US. They expected applause for taking on the US. And they have found not a little.