From the BBC - "Death To America"

[den]

BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb looks at the anti-American movement.

Part 1: "A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered. A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion - or to magnify those indiscretions - while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched."

Part 2: "In other words, in Latin America as elsewhere in the world, is anti-Americanism a smoke screen, a very convenient smoke screen, [to] hide the reality of local failure?"

I think nearly all anti-Americans are hypocrits. On one hand they spout antiUS rhetoric, while with the other hand the take whatever aid, trade and technology the US offers. I'm glad to see someone in the BBC is thinking the same.

Comments

[haggis-bagpipes.livejournal.com]

The first article condemns the french with as little hard evidence to back the claim up. If the French have always hated the US so much, why did they put all that effort into making the Statue of Liberty for them? It is not a balanced article.

The second article actually made me angry. People don't hate America because it's 'a convenient smokescreen for local failure.' There is much more to it than that. Half of the world is living in poverty, are we supposed to believe that this is because all the nations made bad decisions at the same time? Or do unfair western trade laws have something to do with all these countries' economies collapsing at once?

"On the one hand they spout anti-US rhetoric, while on the other hand the take whatever aid, trade and technology the US offers."

The US often offers aid, trade, and technology with strings attached: for example, we'll give you this shipment of food on the condition that, in ten years' time, you give us back twice as much. Or, we'll loan you this large amount of money, but in 10 years' time you have to pay it back with interest. If a country is living in poverty, it will often be in no position to refuse this aid even if accepting it will put them into even worse debt in the long run. It doesn't make them hypocritical if they hate having to suck up to America.

You misspelled hypocrite, by the way.