Stephen Green has a post about Germany that scares me. It starts well enough, complimenting an article by Steve Den Beste – and I also highly recommend this post of Beste. However, Green’s concern that “we’re seeing now simply Germany going back to being, well, goddamn German” frightens me. Not because of what Germany might do – but because of what this may foretell of future American-German relations if Green’s concerns are shared by most Americans.
The one bright spot in this is that I think Green’s concerns are based on incorrect assumptions. Green says his current thoughts are largely based upon:
Germany’s recent problem with us isn’t just Gerhard Schroeder and his opportunistic, vote-grabbing anti-Americanism. A recent poll showed that perhaps as much as 90% of the German public thinks the US is a greater threat to world peace than Iraq, and that the US is a “warmonger nation.” That shocking number can’t be explained away by Schroeder’s opportunism, what with his own poll numbers being in Nixon territory, and his governing coalition close to collapse. No, there has to be something deeper going wrong here.
Let’s not get too carried away by a poll. I suspect that if someone counted all of the conflicts in the last 100 years, the U.S. has probably fought in more wars than any other country. From our perspective, we have been (mostly) trying to save other countries (e.g, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Kuwait, etc.), but sometimes we do it for other reasons (e.g., Panama). Germany feels vast amounts of guilt over WWII and their culture has actually become anti-war in compensation. So I can certainly understand why they might consider us warmongers even as we see ourselves as the defenders of the free world.
I’m not going to worry about the “greater threat to world peace” poll – especially because I haven’t seen any information about the poll. Was it a representative sample? How was the question asked? What questions proceeded it? My background is in Marketing and it is very, very difficult to create an unbiased questionnaire. On the other hand, it is very easy to get the results you want by manipulating your sample, the questions, and the question order.
I have high hopes that German and American relations will heal once Schröder is no longer in office. I have many German friends with which I correspond and they seem to have a diverse set of opinions. I read articles (example) which show how German leaders are dismayed at the outcome of Schröder’s policies. So I believe my hopes for better German-American relations are well-founded.
May Schröder’s reign be short.
Update: This response from Augusto.
Don't know why you isolate Panama there, since from the perspective of the Panamenians (me included) it resulted in the liberation of the country too from a coked up pinnaple faced dictator.As for the rest of the comment, my last name is German but I know very little of German culture. Anti-Americanism is in Vogue today (even in Puerto Rico!) so I wouldn't single out the German people that much. It's just their insipid govt. trying to distract the populace.
Thanks for the feedback and clarification.