Die Jahre der beschämenden Anti-US Politik von Rot-Grün sind trotz Merkels zaghafter Versuche die Beziehung zu kitten, in Amerika nicht vergessen:
Das ist genau der Punkt, denn die Ignoranz und Anti-US Propaganda wird weiterhin über die Medien verbreitet. Die Berichterstattung über den Irakkrieg, über Bush, über die USA ist weiterhin ausschließlich negativ und somit manipulativ und verzerrt.If Angela Merkel wants to repair relations with America, she must address her countrymen's ignorance.
Jede echte oder angebliche Verfehlung der US Politik wird instrumentalisiert um den Anti-Amerikanismus in den deutschen Köpfen zu manifestieren, während die Verfehlungen der eigenen Politik oder Politiker nur kurz angesprochen werden um dann in der Schublade des Vergessens platziert zu werden.While chancellor, Mr. Schroeder signed a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to build a gas pipeline between their two countries under the Baltic and then took a job with a subsidiary of the Russian oil giant Gazprom immediately upon leaving office. This was also around the time Mr. Putin began clamping down on the nongovernmental organizations that are among the last vestiges of an independent Russian civil society. Mr. Schroeder describes Mr. Putin as an "impeccable democrat," and the unseemliness of his current employment has raised only a brief fuss in Germany.
By contrast, every real or alleged American misdeed tends to be treated in German media not as an aberration, but as fundamentally emblematic of standard U.S. practices. "Only now is it becoming clear," writes Florian Guessgen in Stern magazine, "that the German-American quarrel over the Iraq War was, independent of Chancellor Schroeder, a symptom of a fundamental conflict that could shape the trans-Atlantic relationship for decades: The American state is acting in a systematically antiliberal manner." Reflecting the same theme, Michael Naumann, co-editor of the newspaper Die Zeit, refers to the U.S. as Folterstaat Amerika, or "Torture State America."
"Gone are the years when German correspondents in Washington could write guaranteed bestsellers like 'Our America' . . . or 'The Foreign Friend: America,' " Mr. Naumann writes. "If executing a person is the ultimate form of torture, then the 'torture state' label has long applied to the United States. Every 10 days someone is executed in the United States--and it's been going on for 30 years."
Merkels Versuch die Beziehung zur USA wieder aufleben zu lassen, ist zwar ein wichtiger Schritt, wird allerdings nichts ändern so lange die USA weiterhin von den Medien verteufelt wird und als Universal-Sündebock missbraucht wird.The views of Messrs. Guessgen and Naumann are depressingly typical, in two senses. As a 2005 Pew Research Center survey of global attitudes showed, only 41% of Germans take a favorable view of the U.S., and a whopping margin of Germans--58% to 28%--feel the world is less safe without Saddam Hussein.
But they are also typical in that they indicate the degree and extent of ignorance and misinformation common among Germans about U.S. policies and American life. One-third of young Germans reportedly believe the Bush Administration instigated the attacks of September 11. Amerikanische Verhaltnisse--"American Conditions"--is a term of disdain in German politics, meant to suggest the inhumanity of American capitalism. Press reports repeatedly portray the U.S. as a place in which the have-nots are savagely exploited by the haves, where civil liberties are in rapid decline, and in which a government that is by turns buffoonish and cunning schemes to gain control of world oil supplies.
Thus Mrs. Merkel's obeisant raising of Guantanamo. No doubt it's the politically smart thing for her to do. No doubt she does not want "Guantanamo" and all the other shibboleths of Bush-hatred and anti-Americanism to get in the way of restoring a necessary alliance. But until Mrs. Merkel deals head on with the moral and intellectual rot that now passes for sophisticated discourse in Germany, the battles of the past will not lie and the alliance will not be restored [Links nur für registrierte Nutzer]