WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA?
By Z. Sandar & M. Wyn Davies
Icon Books. £7.99
ISBN 1 84046 383 X
The poet Robert Burns once wrote, 'O wad some power the giftie gi'e us to see ourselves as others see us'. This book raises the question: 'Can America really see itself, or is its global arrogance and isolationism too firmly fixed?'
It is not merely about America's confrontation with Islam or its love affair with Israel (despite its abuses) in the Middle East, rather it explores and catalogues the whole US obsession with power and control, over more than 100 years. For example, it shows that in the name of free trade the US now completely dominates the economic policies and prospects of most of the world, at the same time remaining impervious to outside influence or opinion (which is partly why 9/11 proved to be so shocking to the American public).
So big, so self-contained, it is easy for the US to forget that the rest of the world really does exist - and when America ignores such issues as pollution and global warming it sends out the message that only one country matters.
Yet while America has emerged as the only world 'hyperpower' its people have become increasingly paranoid and introspective depending on the CIA or its superior technology and tradition of gung ho military interventions to defend its interests or impose its values on others (see pp.92-101).
In keeping with this mindset, US military spending has risen to an annual $350 billion and the nation continues to hold huge stockpiles of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons.
With a current president who only took power by means of a highly questionable turn of fortunes through the electoral college, and whose values and politics are so plainly blinkered, the authors with some justification have serious doubts about many US policies and proposals affecting the future, not just of middle America but of civilisation itself.
