How the World Will See the Surge ("America is now producing one nightmare after another")

[RedEarth]

How the World Will See the Surge
by John Brown

There has been much press commentary in recent days concerning the administration’s planned surge of American soldiers in Iraq. According to The New York Times, this “rapid influx of forces … could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops to Baghdad.” The domestic consequences of what some media are calling a military escalation have been widely analyzed.

But US pundits, reflecting our widespread national assumption that Iraq is essentially about ourselves, have not sufficiently commented on the possible international reactions to the President’s latest initiative overseas. Below are speculations, based on what polls and foreign media have been saying about the U.S. in recent years, about how some public opinion abroad, taken as a composite, will look at this latest Bush foreign-policy move.

1. The surge is yet another expression of US unilateralism. The Americans do what they want when and how they want, no matter what non-Americans -- including Iraqis -- think. They are not bothering to get international support or approval for their surge. The rest of the world be damned.

2. The Americans say one thing and do another. They proclaim peace as their goal in the Middle East but use military force whenever things don’t go their way. While they love to boast about their wholesome values, they brutally kill innocent civilians in Baghdad neighborhoods in a surge to restore “stability.” Their public diplomacy, whatever they say it is, is no more than blatant, hypocritical propaganda.

..........

10. Any “superpower” that thinks it can “win” a universally condemned war with an additional 20,000 troops is certainly not a model to follow. Forget about the made-in-Hollywood American “dream.” America is now producing one nightmare after another. It’s become a mortal danger, not a universal hope.

John Brown, is a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy http://www.uscpublicdiplomacy.org/pdpr/, and a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. He's a former Foreign Service officer who practiced public diplomacy for over twenty years, now compiles the "Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review,"

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0109-24.htm

[liberal renegade]

1. Duh! n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I'm glad the rest of the world isn't stupid n/t

[indepat]

3. Neocon 'pukes have produced nothing but one nightmare after another and

they surely are a mortal danger to this nation and the whole world, judging by what they've done and clearly intend to do as tens of millions of Amurikkkans march to the every beat of their drum. :shrug: