I loathe America, and what it has done to the rest of the world.

Telegraph.Com ^ | Filed: 08/05/2003) | Margaret Drabble

[Leisler]

I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.

My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.

I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.

I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.

It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.

Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.

We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. Long ago, Voltaire told us that we invent words to conceal truths. More recently, Orwell pointed out to us the dangers of Newspeak.

But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.

There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history.

I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win.

On April 29, 2000, I switched on CNN in my hotel room and, by chance, saw an item designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I took to be Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.

"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator intoned, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough.

The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but had lost the peace.

Just leave Shakespeare and Shakespeare's homeland out of this squalid bit of revisionism, I thought at the time. Little did I then think that now, three years on, Shakespeare's country would have been dragged by our leader into this illegal, unjustifiable, aggressive war. We are all contaminated by it. Not in my name, I want to keep repeating, though I don't suppose anybody will listen.

America uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.)

America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.

They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom.

I keep writing to Jack Straw about the so-called "illegal combatants", including minors, who are detained there without charge or trial or access to lawyers, and I shall go on writing to him and his successors until something happens. This one-way correspondence may last my lifetime. I suppose the minors won't be minors for long, although the youngest of them is only 13, so in time I shall have to drop that part of my objection, but I shall continue to protest.

A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of power… Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."

We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots.

I hate feeling this hatred. I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened. There is another America. Long live the other America, and may this one pass away soon.

[Exit148]

"I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq ------"

Huh? Has she been following what was found in Iraq and what Hussein did to his people? She is more concerned about cartoon faces on planes?

Obviously her anti-Americanism didn't start with the war in Iraq. She sounds delighted that she can spout off her venom and the war just gave her an excuse.

She has a hair across her butt, and a hateful soul.

I wonder if she has ever been here or will come in the future. She'd be a great Freep!

[Vision Thing]

"Margaret, nurture your hate. Let it build within you. Then when you can no longer contain your rage, you will be ready to join me on the dark side of the Force. And together, we shall rule the universe." - Darth Vader, The Loather King

[Leisler]

My pleasure.

[muawiyah]

Actually I'd like to say (in response) "Death to anti-Americans and their running (bull)dog lackies". On the other hand, it would probably be more appropriate to toss out the old "Get a life lady"!

The only clever thing this gal did was include the Vietnam War with the Iraq War in about a paragraph and a half and link it to an old guy in the street demanding dollars.

Then she screwed it up by telling us that "Saigon" is a French term!

Get a life lady! BTW, didi on down to the 7-11 and get me a 6-pack while you're at it.

Moshkosh.

[GrandMoM]

I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.....Ahhhh Madge, anti-Americanism is not what made you ill, it is self hate. Just go pierce some part or every part of your body, and you will feel much, much better!

[Psycho_Bunny]

But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses.

OH! That totally reminds me!

Whichever FReeper pulls my name in the Secret Santa pool this Christmas:  I want a F16 with this painted on the nose:

And directions to Drabble's house.

[Jorge]

Rush is right. The less power the left has, the wackier they get.
It's like they are totally incapable of rational thought.

[RayChuang88]

OH PLEASE!!

Ms. Drabble's looney remarks make me want to .

Do we have to remind her that it took American industrial and military might to save the UK from being defeated in two World Wars and also from being overrun by the Soviets during the Cold War? Give me a !@#$% break.

[Eaker]

Her dad's pretty ugly, but how about posting a picture of her?

I try to read the whole thread before posting, but THAT WAS FUNNY!!!!!

Eaker

[PJ-Comix]

Here is another DUmmy commentary on this same article which was posted on their forum:

Amen. I turned to my friend as we were walking down the street the other day and said "I f*cking hate America." It felt so good. I don't even care anymore. I f*cking hate this country. I f*cking hate the president. When the country goes down the sh*ter, I will just move to Canada. I don't care. America held the bright light for humanity for 200 years. No more. We are stumbling in the darkness with a knife killing our neighbors. F*ck this country. It deserves what it gets.

[Doc On The Bay]

Is it Possible that this 'Poor Soul' is Intellectually Incapable of Rationally Evaluating the Overwhelming Evidence of the "Baa'th Party" affronts to ANY Criteria of Civilized Human Behavior??

In Short, "Is this Person even Minimally Sane??"

Inquiring Minds Want to Know!!

Doc

[razorbak]

[Oztrich Boy]

A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.

That would be the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The best known P-40 unit was the American Volunteer Group in China, the "Flying Tigers". The famous shark-mouth decoration on their aircraft actually originated with the RAF in the Western Desert.

RAF 112 Squadron

Also Royal Australian Air Force Squadron 457 with Spitfires

16 Squadron RAF with Canberras

Royal Navy Sea Vixen <(and) RAAF Taylorcraft Auster MkIII

And I believe that some Americans have also used the motif

[FirstTomato]

Leftists are wrong because they don't have values, and they don't have a sense of right and wrong, and that's a symptom of evil, not mental illness. Thank leftists for the plague of "mental illness" diagnosis in this society, because the psychology industry is how leftists have increasingly replaced religion in this society.

[pfflier]

The food in England can account for this. She is a mad cow.

[Skywalk]

There's not enough naked or near-naked women on airplanes, in my view. In fact I propose the immediate decoration of all civilian airliners with paintings of women(and men, if you swing that way) Of course, I've been known as absurd from time to time.

I do know this broad is off her rocker, and just about everything she says is the exact OPPOSITE of the objective truth.

[Verginius Rufus]

"At fifty, every man has the face he deserves."

Unfortunately, George Orwell didn't get to find out if that was true in his own case...he died in his 40s.

[MEG33]

LOL..very good!

[FirstTomato]

Why post that stuff here? What else would DU'ers be saying? Afterall, if they had any values, and any sense, they wouldn't be DU'ers.

[AnAmericanMother]

I personally like this one . . .

". . . sudden stoppage on No. 3 engine caused by ingestion of Cessna 150 . . . "

. . . but that's just me . . .