Is Davids Medienkritik Having an Impact?

(By Ray Drake)

Read the following excerpts from an outstanding recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece and decide for yourself...

"Europe's 'Moral Outrage'

December 1, 2005

Europe is enthralled by another American "torture scandal." Governments demand
the truth behind allegations, first made by the Washington Post last month, that
the CIA has operated covert prisons in Europe and secretly transported terrorist
suspects through European airports. Human Rights Watch claims to have located
the prisons in "New Europe" -- Poland and Romania.

The outrage on the Continent is deafening. Franco Frattini, the normally
level-headed European Commissioner for Justice, threatened "serious
consequences," including the unprecedented "suspension of voting rights" in the
European Union for the Poles and Romanians if the allegations prove true. After
all, "European values" would have been violated.

It is difficult to comment on the substance of the allegations because there
isn't much substance at the moment. Both the Romanian and Polish governments
have denied the reports, while Washington promised to look into the case. So for
the time being, there are only allegations and a lot of moral outrage. That
moral posturing, though, deserves a closer look.

We'd be the first to applaud Europeans for finally concerning themselves with
moral principles instead of commercial interests. Many of the Middle East's
problems, including terrorism, would be easier solved if Europe were seriously
concerned about morality. Europe would no longer be Iran's No. 1 trading
partner, and its companies wouldn't be able to attend trade fairs in Sudan
anymore.

Unlike American companies -- recently defamed in Germany as "(blood) suckers"
and "locusts" by the former government -- European firms are quite busy in
Sudan. The chamber of commerce and industry in Stuttgart has enthused over what
great opportunities Sudan's oil resources offer to German companies.

Lest people think they are doing something morally reprehensible, the salesmen
from Stuttgart prefer to describe the massacres of black Africans in Darfur as
"political disturbances." The German economics ministry, which sponsored the
German pavilion at last February's trade fair in Sudan, will also support next
February's event, the chamber of commerce assures its members.

Where is the outrage? How does that jibe with supposed European values?

Or who in Europe has heard of Soghra, an Iranian woman sentenced in October to
death by stoning for adultery? Or Mokhtar N. and Ali A., hanged last month in a
public square in Iran for homosexuality?

In much of Europe's public debate, the true meaning of human rights has
degenerated into a tool that gives anti-Americanism an aura of legitimacy. The
real, horrendous human-rights violations in the Middle East, North Korea, China,
Cuba, etc., are largely ignored or relegated to news blurs on the back pages.
For front-page coverage, you need an American angle." (emphasis ours)

That last paragraph really hit the nail on the head. Go read the entire thing. If you haven't already subscribed to the Wall Street Journal Online, now is the time to do so. These guys are true pros. They obviously recognize a good thing when they see it. Hopefully they will continue the very necessary task of exposing the hypocrisy and holier-than-thou superiority complex of the left-wing Eurosnob elite.

Comments

[pigilito]

You guys are certainly on a roll this week. It's a pity you so much fodder for your cannons. Keep up the good fight; without doubt your blog is making a difference.

[FranzisM]

Too bad this commentary is not open content, but even from the excerpt quoted here one thing can be said for sure: If Europe wants to successfully address external moral issues, it first has to settle its internal moral issues.

If there weren't unresolved moral issues between the European nations themselves such a blatant attempt to divide Europe over relations to America as it can be seen in the "suspension of voting rights" campaign would not be possible. The most important such internal moral issue that needs to be resolved after it had been temporarily papered over during the cold war are the consequences of WWII to Eastern Europe:

Merkel has said she will also seek agreement with Poland and other countries who suffered under the Nazis on how to remember the suffering of ethnic Germans expelled from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe at the end of the war.

Poles fear a "Center Against Expulsions" planned in Berlin by a German foundation's could reopen wartime wounds and encourage those who were expelled and their descendants to claim compensation.

The new German government has said it supports erecting a "visible sign" in Berlin as part of a European network of memorials to acknowledge the suffering of all those driven from their homes in the war.

"That has something to do with our own understanding of history. But it also has something to do with the trust of others in us," Merkel said in her debut speech to parliament on Wednesday.

When Germany wants a central memorial site, and Poland insists it does not belong into the political capital, why can't we agree to install it in Munich where the collapse of pre-war diplomacy began? The building where the Munich Agreement was worked out does still exist.

[Atlanticus]

Great that the WSJ wrote:
"its companies wouldn't be able to attend trade fairs in Sudan
anymore."

The WSJ got it from Davids Medienkritik, which got it from us at Atlantic Review. And we got it from Neokomplott, but we digged deeper and found the German Pavillion website. And Neokomplott got it from Extrablog.

Bloggin is like science. Isaac Newton's bonmot "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." applies to blogger as well. One would only hope that the WSJ and others who stand on our shoulders, would give more credit!

[RayD]

@ Atlanticus,

You are right. This does demonstrate the power of the blogosphere. And it is a great thing.

As far as giving credit goes, I can say that we mentioned and linked to everyone involved in the development of the story who we know of and whom you mentioned (in your comment above) in our Sudan piece. In fact, I'm quite sure that our links brought all of those sites significant traffic increases. So please let me know if there is anyone we missed and whether there is something more we could do to provide the appropriate credit to those involved in the development of this story.

As far as the WSJ goes, I'm pretty sure its safe to say they picked up on the Sudan issue (and the bloodsuckers issue) right here first. I am personally flattered that they wrote on it and think they did a wonderful job. We have no burning desire to be recognized by them any more than we already are and the articles themselves are recognition enough as far as we are concerned. For us it is about the message.

[Olaf Petersen]

Wow - I'm impressed!

[Atlanticus]

@ Ray,

I am sorry, I did not mean to criticize you. I just wanted to describe how the "trigger up"-process worked. Extrablog, Neokomplott, Atlantic Review and DMK all did their share and all gave credit to each other.
Only the WSJ did not give any, but they don't have to.

Let's see, if any other paper picks up the Sudan sentence in the WSJ and then does some googling and finds one of our blogs and then covers this issue more in depth.

The MSM is increasingly using bloggers, but only few MSM dare to acknowledge bloggers as they would acknowledge newspapers. It's okay. I wrote "using", rather than "abusing".)

I agree, it's not about getting credit. The message is more important for us as well.

[Don]

I think the idea of a Center is a marvelous one - but there are many candidates for an appropriate site. I personally favor some Polish sites, such as the Warsaw Ghetto (lots of missing Jews) or the forest in Poland where thousands of murdered Polish officers were found after WWII. The Ukraine could contribute sites where the bodies of thousands of 'dispossesed' turned up. There are parts of Paris and Lyon which harbored thousands of Jews before the war - but they somehow seem to be missing now.......

Apart from that, why not site it at one of the old favorites such as Auschwitz or Buchenwald? Or the village in Limosin which was wiped out in a reprisal against the French Resistence?

[FranzisM]

@Don - The rationale to have the Vertreibungszentrum in Berlin was because it was thought as a counterpart to the Holocaust memorial, not as a replacement of the existing programs on the sites of crime, but as the addition of a kind of German Yasukuni shrine. This function requires a site in Germany, though not necessarily in Berlin.

Like its Japanese counterpart, this is a religious institution, with the 1950 Charta der Vertriebenen that is at the heart of the campaign claiming "the right to our native land ... as one of the basic rights of man, granted to him by God." When it is built, politicians will visit it, and it will be on the media radar beyond our borders just like Yasukuni is. Only that Japan had the real estate before it settles the issues, while in the case of Germany it is the other way round.

The challenge is to find a context where this floating claim can be anchored in consensus with our neighbors, so why not take the root cause to which every discussion of the legitimacy of the Vertreibungen boils down with Godwin's-law-like certainty - Munich? Bringing back the Munich Agreement into the present might also help to prevent the Paris Agreement with Iran from turning into another Munich Agreement, lest the pandora's box of 1938 never be opened again.

A massacred French village probably would be the worst of all choices, given the political climate in France it would only be turned into a memorial site for the Jenin hoax. The objective of setting Europe's internal moral issues before external issues are addressed cannot be achieved with the focus on a specific crimesite or a certain type of war crime, but only when it is put on the political origin of the lawlessness that enabled the crime.

[cba]

So it does not make a difference anymore if the USA or China or Saudi-Arabia violates human rights, tortures people etc.? You don't have higher standards than these other countries? OK I'll keep that in mind for future discussions :)

[thanil]

You are right, FranzisM. The USA should adhere to higher standards than morally inferior states like China and North Korea. And of course it is a lot more alarming to the European public to notice the slow but constant erosion of the concepts of civil and human rights in the most important allied country. Especially as it first put those ideals into practice. At least partially.