Davids Medienkritik

Jeffrey Gedmin: "True Grit"

Proudly presenting the original English version of the latest Jeffrey Gedmin article in the German daily "WELT".

Jeffrey Gedmin: Ransom's Inflation

The German government's willingness to pay ransom for kidnapped Germans is the topic of Jeffrey Gedmin's latest column in WELT. We gladly present the original version of the article.

Ransom's Inflation
Kidnapping in Iraq
Column in “Die Welt” (10.05.2006)
By Jeffrey Gedmin

I am absolutely delighted that Rene Bräunlich and Thomas Nitzschke got out of Iraq this past weekend, miraculously alive and well after 99 days in captivity. It’s a credit to skilful German diplomacy that the two men are free. But I also belong to the group that believes the way the German government is handling this sort of thing stinks. No sooner were the men free, did press reports begin circulating that the German government had paid the kidnappers more than $10 million (US). That would be more than twice the amount that Berlin apparently paid for the release of archaeologist Susanne Osthoff. It makes ones heart sink.

Eckart Lohse frets in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that a debate about paying these ransoms has begun (Silence is the citizen’s duty--Schweigen ist Buergerpflicht). Even the suggestion that ransoms are being paid, fears Lohse, will invite more kidnappings. Deputy foreign minister Gernot Erler likes to opine that Bräunlich and Nitzschke’s captors were just criminals and not Islamic terrorists. I think this is supposed to reassure us, although I am not sure really why. In any case, the

Jeffrey Gedmin: Teheran and the Bomb

We are glad to have received Jeffrey Gedmin's permission to print the original English version of his article in WELT, Was wäre wenn....?

WHAT IF... ?
Teheran and the Bomb
Column in "Die Welt" (26.04.2006)
By Jeffrey Gedmin

A couple years ago British historian Andrew Roberts published a volume
of essays in counterfactual history, also known as "what if" history. Some
of this stuff seems extravagant, I admit, like speculating how things would
have been different had Nazi Germany won the Second World War. I find
more stimulating the comparatively discreet questions, like what would have
happened had the Brighton bombing succeeded in killing Margaret
Thatcher.

In 1982 IRA terrorists murdered five people by exploding two large bombs at
the Grand Hotel in the English seaside city of Brighton. Thatcher, whose
bathroom was shredded by the explosion, narrowly escaped uninjured. Had
Thatcher died that night, Michael Heseltine might have become Prime
Minister. Imagine: no Thatcher revolution, no transformation of the British
economy, no key ally for Ronald Reagan, nobody to tell George Bush
senior in 1991 not to go "wobbly" after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Some see counterfactual history as a useless parlour game. Others
lament itssuperficial read of events, as it tends to underestimate social
processes and other "historical forces." I tend to appreciate, though, the role
of key personalities, good (and bad) ideas and sometimes sheer serendipity in
shaping the course of things.

I recall in the 1980s in the GDR being with a friend in Ilmenau, whose
mother gazed out the kitchen window and told of how after the World War
II American troops came and sat on one side of the hill, Soviet troops on
the other. She wondered aloud, with evident melancholy, how her own life
might have been different had the Red Army left days later and the Americans
instead had stayed.

I've got my own counterfactual history of Iraq. It starts with 1991.
Imagine Saddam had possessed nuclear weapons. He was closer to
getting the bomb than we had imagined before to the first Gulf War. I
suspect Kuwait would have become the 19th province of Iraq and the oil fields of
Saudi Arabia might belong to Baghdad today. I have my own thoughts about
the last four years as well. Only a fool would deny that we Americans have
made grave mistakes and that the security situation in the Iraq is extremely
serious. I find it ridiculous, though, to see the smug anti-war crowd

Jeffrey Gedmin: Neutrality is not Possible

Proudly presenting the original English version of Jeffrey Gedmin's article in WELT ("Neutralität ist nicht möglich") on April 12, 2006. Mr. Gedmin is Director of the Aspen Institute's Berlin office.

Neutrality is not possible - Israel and the Palestinians
Column in "Die Welt" (12.04.2006)
By Jeffrey Gedmin

I cringe every time I hear the BBC or CNN report about Palestinian
"militants."  They are not willing to call the suicide bombers "terrorists".
European commentary is now talking about the next Israeli government
"threatening" the Palestinians with new unilateral pull-outs. Of course, it
gets worse. A friend brought to my attention a Tagesspiegel article, in
which Israelis who die at the hands of Palestinians lose their lives to "the
resistance" ("Widerstand"); while Hamas members who perish in the conflict
are "murdered" ("ermordet") by the Israelis. This does not seem terribly
even-handed. Rolf Behrens did an eye-popping study of Der Spiegel's bias
against Israel a couple of years ago. I have the impression not much has
changed at Der Spiegel.

I was in Israel for the country's recent elections and the visit reminded me
of my own bias. While I was there, the Israeli air force was striking
targets in Gaza. The Israelis hit bomb making factories and in one case a
vehicle carrying a Palestinian "militant." I think Israel deserves the right
to self-defence. That's why I favour "targeted killings." I visited the
security fence again. The International Court of Justice still sees this
barrier as illegal. The Guardian compares Israel to South Africa at times of
Apartheid. I am glad Sharon had built the thing. It looks hideous. It also
brought the number of suicide bombings down.

I visited during this trip a Palestinian womens' NGO in East Jerusalem. I
heard a young woman from the group explain how wife beating in her community
was somehow understandable. Palestinian men suffer so much, she explained,
from the Israeli "occupation."

I am not really sure how I became so one-sided in this conflict. I grew up
Catholic, knowing little about Jews or the Jewish state. I remember my

America as a Nightmare

It took us a while to get the English version of Aspen Berlin institute Jeffrey Gedmin's article "America as a nightmare" in the German daily "Welt" ("Amerika als Alptraum"). Even though the piece was already published on March 1, 2006, my uninformed guess is that all of what Mr. Gedmin wrote is still true early April.

Don't you think so?

AMERICA AS A NIGHTMARE
What German High School Students Learn
By Jeffrey Gedmin

In a recent talk with high school students I was astounded what passion these young people have for the fate of Al Qaeda detainees in Guantanomo. I told them I would close the bloody thing. Still, they huffed and puffed. Der Spiegel froths at the mouth over this stuff (see last week’s cover story, "Amerikas Schande--Folter im Namen der Freiheit") (Link to Medienkritik's critique). With some 500 detainees, I figure the EU’s 25 member states could offer to take 20 Al Qaeda fighters a piece. I am not holding my breath. I recall a senior Schroeder official saying at a private dinner that his government was happy not to have to deal with the problem. Of course, even if we closed Guantanomo today, I doubt whether it would end the obsession with America’s faults, real and perceived. Let’s face it. Bad America news sells. I looked at headlines on U.S. stories in the Berlin Tagesspiegel over a recent three month period. Not a very scientific method, admittedly, but still I found a pretty good tilt: 38 negative headlines, 13 neutral and one positive one. I marvel each time I meet someone who has a balanced opinion of the United States.

I met another group of high schoolers, whose teacher asked whether the U.S. invaded Iraq so the Pentagon could test new weapons. A reader sent me the anti-American Hiroshima poem her young daughter was required to learn in school. A friend tells me of his dismay when he and his wife learned that their daughter’s English grammar lesson included sentences like, “America has many prisons.” It sounds like the Michael Moore version of life in America has taken hold in the German educational system.

I asked a school teacher friend whether he finds any of this exceptional. He hit me with a wave of additional examples. In reference to the 2000 elections, a 10th grade Berlin text book asks, how can a “developed nation like the United States fail to hold an election with a fair, democratic result?” Students get no explanation of America’s Electoral College system; or the fact that the Florida vote was later certified as fair by independent organizations. Berlin 10th graders also play a game called “the New American Dream Career.” No matter how you play, you lose. Join a rock band and you get hooked on drugs. Struggle with alcoholism, you end up with a Mcjob. Get sick, you end up bankrupt. Is the game “just meant to make people laugh,” the authors ask, “or does it have a message? Are career chances for young people in Germany similar or totally different?”

In Lower Saxony students who take advanced English are required to read “The Tortilla Curtain” by T.C. Boyle. In Boyle’s story, an illegal immigrant couple is injured, robbed and raped. They live the American nightmare. Here the text book authors ask students to discuss the difference “between slaves and illegal immigrants” in the United States today. You thought America was a melting pot? Another text book enlightens students that “the land of unlimited opportunities began to limit itself” long ago.

It would be wrong to suggest that nothing positive about the U.S. turns up in these texts. My teacher friend sends me one text, which notes that Americans “value independence, self-reliance and persistence.” Lo and behold, these are the same virtues, students learn, that lead to Americans’ “lack of cooperation, poor social development, selfishness and violence.” I hope to hear this week from anybody who can assure me that these are just silly, unfortunate exceptions. (emphasis added)

Gedmin on Anti-Americanism at the Berlinale

This year's Berlinale - Germany's showcase of the film industry - had its fair share of America-bashing. In Germany's daily WELT, Berlin Aspen Institute director Jeffrey Gedmin in his usual brilliant style commented on the demonization of the American president by American actors.

HARRY AND THE DICTATORS

Artists against Bush / Column in “Die Welt” (February 15, 2006) By Jeffrey Gedmin

George Clooney, who came to Berlin’s film festival last week, got gobs of space to talk about politics. Clooney complained to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that he was treated like “a traitor” in the U.S. for his opposition to the Iraq war. That’s why he lives in Italy today, he told Stern magazine. It sounds strange. Film maker Michael Moore got rich in America by being against the war. New York Times’ columnists Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd were against the war. So were the LA Times, the Boston Globe, the Nation magazine, Noam Chomsky, Norman Mailer, the Dixie Chicks, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, as was, of course, most of Hollywood. In any case, opposition to the war does not seem to have harmed George Clooney's pocket book. He manages exile in a 26 room, waterfront villa.

I have the feeling Europe may trump America—and this is surely hard to do--when it comes to fawning over the politics of celebrities. Three years ago there was adulation for Dustin Hoffman's anaylsis of Iraq when the actor turned up in Berlin (Hoffman was against the war). One of Germany's favorite polit-entertainer seems to be singer Harry Belafonte, who celebrates his 79th birthday in two weeks. Belafonte has been a guest on the number 1 Christiansen show. He’s been on the Beckmann show. Everyone loves Harry. The station 3Sat dubs him a “fighter for peace.” He is a UNICEF goodwill Ambassador. Two years ago, he even spoke to members of the Bundestag. “You could hear a pin drop,” said Christiansen, a fellow UNICEF Ambassador. 

I am indebted to Professor Ronald Radosh, who has helped document Belafonte’s peculiar political tastes. That Belafonte hates Bush is no surprise. He told an audience in Venezuela, with Hugo Chavez looking on, that the U.S. President is “the greatest terrorist in the world.” He calls the Office of Homeland Security the new Gestapo. But Belafonte’s argument is not just with Bush. American foreign policy, he says, has “always built on the demise of the poor.” That would surprise Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

Belafonte opines about domestic policy, too. He says the U.S. has built so many prisons because the government always believed there would be enough people of colour “to fill them.” He has choice words for fellow African Americans. He once likened U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell to a slave “who lived in the house (and) served the master.” Condi Rice, he mused, “is like a “Jew … doing things that were anti-semitic and against the best interests of her people.”   

At a time when regime repression has increased, Belafonte continues to support Fidel Castro. When he appeared at a Havana film festival, he told Cubans that “censorship” in the U.S. had reached its peak. That was rich. Cuba does not have a free press. According to “Reporters without Borders,” what’s more, Cuba is one of the leading “enemies” of the internet today. Of the island’s 11.3 million inhabitants, only about 120,000 are permitted access by the Communist regime.

Belafonte says he learned from his mother, “never capitulate to oppression.” That’s really strange. It is hard to keep track of all the dictatorships that Belafonte has supported. He sympathized with Ethiopia’s left-wing dictator Mengistu, a Warsaw Pact ally until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mengistu, accused of a genocide in which thousands were executed, would later insist that his “Red Terror Campaign” was merely a legitimate “defence of the revolution.” In 1983, Belafonte performed at an East German World Peace Concert.” If you want to fight the root cause of injustice, then fight the “military-industrial complex, led by the United States,” he likes to say. Erich Honecker could not have said it better.

Stay tuned. More celebrity enlightenment is on the way.

English versions of Jeffrey Gedmin's WELT articles - you see it first at Davids Medienkritik! Also, here is an earlier article we did on the director of the Berlinale, Dieter Kosslick, who expressed the wish to greet all of the 450+ Guantanamo inmates on the film-fest's red carpet.

Jeffrey Gedmin: Adjusting the Law

Davids Medienkritik proudly presents the English version of the newest WELT article from Berlin Aspen Institute's Jeffrey Gedmin.

Adjusting the Law
December 14, 2005
By Jeffrey Gedmin

Arno Widmann comments in the Berliner Zeitung: “the Americans are waging a war against human rights" ("einen Krieg gegen die Menschenrechte"). The same day the Berliner Zeitung ran a long page two story on the CIA's empire of evil. Shoddy Michael Moore-style journalism is popular. Of course, the United States hardly does itself favours. The Bush team seems arrogant and seldom wants to admit a mistake.

It all distracts dangerously from a more serious debate about how we fight the war on terror. Critics argue that the United States cannot have carte blanche to do whatever it wants in Guantanamo. The Bush administration says, Read the Geneva Convention—it does not apply to Al Qaeda prisoners. Both are right. Why does it take so long to get to the inevitable: the development of international law to meet the needs of the current era. We have done this before. That's how we got the Geneva Conventions. Now we need laws that apply to combatants who do not wear a uniform, who hide among civilians and who deliberately target unarmed innocents. These are not the criminals our domestic judicial systems or the international law have been equipped to deal with.

Then there is torture. I yearn to say those words "torture is never justifiable!" I feel confident with other moral absolutes. Slavery is never justifiable. Terrorism is never justifiable. The United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which the U.S. is a signatory, bans torture as well as other acts of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Did you know "cruel, inhuman and degrading" can include giving sodium pentathol ("truth serum") to a terrorist who has information about a pending attack? I am not interested in degrading anyone. Nor am I interested in punishment or revenge by the way. I do want information, though, that can prevent further massacres. I want an honest and serious debate about how we get that information.

This U.S. debate is being led by Republican Senator John McCain. McCain has credentials. He spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison and was tortured much of the time. McCain says "No" to torture: any kind, any time, any circumstance, any place. This includes brutal tactics--the cruel, inhuman and degrading stuff--that may fall technically short of torture, such as making a prisoner stand for a long period of time or blasting prisoners with strobe lights and loud rock music. This is presumably the semantic game the Bush administration is playing when it says it does not torture. There is another side to the debate. Like McCain, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post says torture is a "monstrous evil." In an essay in the Weekly Standard magazine, Krauthammer argues for an absolute ban on all forms of coercion by military personnel. He professes revulsion over the "sick sadomasochism" of Lynndie England and her cronies at Abu Ghraib. But then Krauthammer wants exceptions. He calls for specialized agents--and not just anyone with CIA credentials--who in exceptional, life-saving circumstances would seek permission from the highest political authorities in the country (or from a special judicial body) to interrogate aggressively.

Before we ignite an anti-American (or anti-Gedmin) tirade, please recall that Germans themselves are consumers of information obtained through unsavoury techniques. It seems it is hard to escape ugly dilemmas in the war against Islamo-Faschism. The unpleasant truth is: Aggressive interrogation methods have already saved lives.

This may be what German foreign minister Steinmeyer had in mind when he warned last week against frivolous accusations or judgments Combating the terrorists, says Steinmeyer, poses the most difficult choices for the authorities. I have no doubt. Let's put platitudes aside and let a serious debate begin.

Jeffrey Gedmin is director of the Aspen Institute Berlin

Gedmin: Where Are Those "No-Blood-For-Oil" Banners When You Need Them?

We have obtained permission to print the original English version of this commentary in the daily WELT of October 21, 2005, by the Aspen Institute Berlin's Jeffrey Gedmin. Another jewel in our collection of Gedmin articles...

After attending in Paris recently a meeting of pro-democracy Syrians, I returned sheepishly to Berlin. That’s because I have the strong impression that a majority of Germans think like Peter Scholl Latour, namely that a) the Middle East does not want democracy; b) the outside world could not help anyway; and c) that the Amis should definitely not interfere.

I always wondered why Chancellor Schroeder would pile on his plane all those business executives when he travelled to places like Saudi Arabia. I found one explanation--thanks to one of Germany’s top bloggers Ulrich Speck --in the words of Dr. Gunter Muhlack, the Commissioner for the Task Force for the Dialogue with the Islamic World in the foreign ministry in Berlin. Dr.Muhlack says: “We do not want to impose our view of the world and our philosophy on our partners. Here I have the feeling there is a big difference between the American and the European approach.”

Maybe Dr. Muhlack has a point. The French, to be sure, insisted on “the European approach” with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It turns out, of course, that in the case of the French this may not have been merely a matter of principle. Jean-Bernard Merimee, a former French Ambassador to the United Nations, was hauled before a French magistrate this week, alleged to have taken bribes from Saddam Hussein in the amount of 11 million barrels of oil. Also accused of being bribed by the former Iraqi regime are French senator and former interior minister Charles Pasqua; former secretary general of the French foreign ministry, Serge Boidevaix; and Jacques Chirac’s friend Patrick Maugein, who is also incidentally chairman of the oil company SOCO. Yes, you wonder where those “no-blood-for-oil” banners are when you need them.

I think it is time for Americans and Europeans to level with each other. In a pre-9-11

Jeff Gedmin: Perverse German Reactions to Katrina

One of the most troubling aspects of Germany's reaction to the Katrina tragedy is just how widespread the outbursts of Schadenfreude and the ridiculous blame diatribes have been. It seemed to begin with Germany's lunatic-fringe Environmental Minister Juergen Trittin, who blamed disasters like Katrina on America's George W. Bush's environmental policy and rejection of Kyoto. Shortly thereafter, "Stern" magazine, "Die Zeit" and Chancellor Schroeder chimed in and blamed America's lack of big-state Socialism for the extent of the disaster. Yet others were simply happy to see America take a hit.

Thankfully, there was someone sane in the midst of all the finger-pointing and conspiracy-spinning to record it all. That someone is Jeffrey Gedmin, and his article on the perverse German reactions to Katrina is undoubtedly the most comprehensive and informative piece written on the subject. Mr. Gedmin has kindly granted Davids Medienkritik permission to print his work in the English original.

"Save Your Comments

By Jeffrey Gedmin

A friend of mine, born and raised in the south, a supporter of George W. Bush, has told me several times how disturbed she is by New Orleans. She finds it shocking that the U.S. government responded so slowly, and above all, left the most vulnerable, mostly poor African-Americans, to fend for themselves. Follow the U.S. commentary and you'll know that America is at the beginning of an agonizing debate, likely to last longer than the time it will take to rebuild New Orleans.

You can learn a bit about this in the German commentary about Hurricane Katrina. But that's not all. What an orgy it has been! It started with environment minister Jürgen Trittin's low blow about "climate polluter headquarters" USA. Things like Katrina will not happen, opined Professor Trittin, if only Americans would protect the environment. The Chancellor quickly joined the pack, of course. He says if only the Americans had a bigger state they could have been spared their misery. Henryk Broder found a gem, an American-hating lady from Chemnitz, who wrote to a large daily about Katrina. Her view: "A religious person could get the impresson that this is the wrath of God." My favorite, though, is the one from a fellow from Berlin-Zehlendorf, who wrote to the Berliner Morgenpost about the "war criminals" in the US government who "could care less about the deaths of blacks or foreigners." For a more sophisticated formulation of this thesis, see the front page editorial this week from Stephan-Andreas Casdorff in the Tagesspiegel who did his readers the favour of inserting himself into the brain of the U.S. President. What did Mr. Casdorff discover? That the heartless George Walker Bush would rather attend a business dinner in San Diego or play guitar on his ranch than care for fellow Americans in their hour of need.

Still, the "Armin Meiwes prize for Katrina commentary." names in honor of the "Cannibal of Rotenburg," goes to the salivating fellow from the taz who admits to feelings of "joy" over all the death and destruction. Philipp Mausshardt says he is happy that Katrina hit the United States.

A few quick points to all of this. First, I am pretty sure God did not order Katrina to punish the United States. Second, I am certain the United States needs a more serious debate about global warming. So does Germany. According to the United Nations, since the 1940s "the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased." Scientists are also divided, incidentally, on the cause of recent violent hurricanes. Third, a note to the outgoing Chancellor. Yes, we all love Vater Staat, but if bigger government were the answer to natural distasters, then how come your buddies in Paris did not fare better in preventing the deaths of 15.000 during the heat wave that hit France a couple years ago? Fourth, the next time the storm of a century ravages an area half the size of Germany within 24 hours, and this by the way after repeated false alarms, I have no doubt that the editors of the Tagesspiegel will roll out their master plan for a faster, more effecient, more comprehensive and more humane response than the monster Bush.

Finally, we Americans are indeed shocked and embarrassed by what has happened. There will be investigations, commissions, conferences, documentaries and books examining what should have been done differently by local, state and federal authorities. A new debate about race and poverty in America has also begun. Among the recriminations, there is introspection. Does anyone else want to get a kick in while we are on the ground?"

Indeed. But let us be clear on another point: Not all Germans share the sentiments described above. We would like to believe that most Germans do not and that those with perverse reactions are a minority. But we can also not ignore the fact that most Germans have been less than enthusiastic about helping Americans in their time of need. We would like to report the very opposite. After all, both David and I are German citizens, (David is a full German and I am dual US-German), and we would like to report that Germany has generously supported the hurricane victims. But the opposite is true. Most Germans simply assume that America is rich and doesn't need the help and yet others obviously view America with disdain and have simply chosen not to help.

The German government has sent some aid, and President Bush has thanked Chancellor Schroeder for the assistance, but apparently there is a customs issue with a portion of it that the German media is blaming on the US. This is curious indeed considering the fact that German private industry has absolutely no problem exporting things into the United States. So why the holdup?

Anyway, Jeff's article is necessary to raise awareness on the ugly side of German society, politics and media. And in that we are fully on his side. Keep up the good work Jeff!

Finally, Another German Voice We Can Agree With...

Davids Medienkritik Receives Prominent Mention in the Washington Times

Not all Germans are alike - that's what our critics have been telling us since the start of this blog.

OK, you convinced me. Here, finally, is another German voice we can agree with.

Julian Knapp in the Washington Times (Page A21 of the September 12, 2005 edition):

Persuading the Germans

One would think that better times are ahead for those of us Germans that still refuse to hate the United States. After all, Karen Hughes is finally on the job as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and a new U.S. ambassador has just arrived in Germany. Surely, the new "propaganda czar" paired with a fresh pair of boots on the ground in Berlin will help to win back at least a few stubbornly skeptical Germans, right? Unfortunately, I doubt it.
    For one thing Mrs. Hughes has other priorities. Her focus will be on winning over the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world. But I hope she remembers that it was the hostile hearts and minds of (old) European voters that cost the United States a considerable amount of potential international support and legitimacy in recent years. Public-opinion trends in Germany, once a stalwart ally, should be a particular concern in future U.S. public-diplomacy efforts.
    A quick reminder of how things stand here: A poll presented this week by the German Marshall Fund finds that a majority of Germans continues to have an unfavorable view of the United States. In fact, China stands in higher regard, according to a Pew poll from earlier this year. Germans yearn for someone to rival the United States militarily, preferably the European Union. This might be due to the fact that they consider the United States a bigger "threat to world peace" than countries such as Iran and North Korea, as a EU study found in 2003. So, don't count on us supporting German politicians that are openly friendly to you.
    And don't think that you can simply sit this out until 2008. No doubt, Germans will never love George W. Bush, due to his style and his policies.
    But the erosion of trust in America will not automatically be reversed under a new U.S. government. In fact, the same Pew poll finds that, among Germans, the image of American people has worsened since 2002, independent of their views of Mr. Bush's administration.
    "If I had the opportunity to say just one thing to people throughout the world, it would be: I am eager to listen," says Mrs. Hughes. Good idea. She will discover that America-friendly voices are practically drowned out in the German public debate.
    To get an impression, take a look at David's Medienkritik, a Web log in English dedicated, among other things, to exposing biased reporting on the United States in the German media. Be it stories about the war in Iraq, the conduct of U.S. soldiers abroad, American reservations regarding the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court or even the Katrina disaster, more often than not the German public is presented with a distorted picture. There are laudable exceptions. But generally the blows are low, and the public is left to form its opinion base on half-truths and false analyses.
    Faced with such a hostile environment, surely the president is sending his most apt campaigner to the arena? Enter William R. Timken, the new U.S. ambassador to Germany. (click link below to continue)   

Journalists: Useful Idiots for Terrorists?

Here is another gem from Berlin Aspen Institute's Jeffrey Gedmin...the original English version of the article that was published in Tuesday's "Welt" in German. I had planned to publish the piece earlier, but then had to delay it because of Katrina. Katrina is still at the forefront of our thinking, but I think Jeffrey Gedmin's voice needs to be heard under any circumstances.

Journalists: Useful Idiots for Terrorists?

By Jeffrey Gedmin

I think media coverage of Iraq generally stinks. Televison is the
absolute worst. I have a simple theory. Lots of people at CNN, BBC and in
German media--in the last case it would be hard to find exceptions--were
against the war. Passionately against. I believe that today these same
folks allow their passions and prejudice to get in the way of fair and
objective reporting. I wonder what it would take to initiate an honest
and open debate about the subject in Germany? Or any debate at all for
that matter.

By now, of course, the media has succeeded in reducing Iraq to a single
issue story: suicide bombings. Terrorist violence is an enormous

"Germans Regulate Anything That Moves"

Interesting interview with the Aspen Institute's Jeff Gedmin at the Clive Davis blog.

Excerpts:

You want Berlin to be a pioneer city, but there is still the smell of socialism in the air. Caution kills and today's Germany has made caution and consensus into a fetish ... Germans regulate still virtually everything that moves. This attitude - it starts in the minds of people - kills individual initiative, responsibility, risk, innovation. All in the name of "social justice," of course.

Q - Should America close its military bases in Germany?

Yes, some at least. The Cold War is over. Germans feel at best ambivalent about the US presence. That's fine. Obviously, our strategic requirements are changing rapidly. Still, I wonder what psychological impact this will have on Germany and its neighbours. I think the test of Germany finding its place in Europe will be tougher than most think. (...)

Anti-Americanism runs deep. Bush is an excuse for many. Angela Merkel will not play the anti-American card the way Schroeder has done so. But she will have to fend off anti-Americanism on the right. Just watch after the 6-12 month honeymoon.

Read the whole interview.

Jeffrey Gedmin: Che Guevara isn’t cool

Jeffrey Gedmin is director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin. He is a critical observer of the German media's obsession with anti-Americanism.

This is another gem from Mr. Gedmin, published in Germany's daily WELT. (May I say that I am quite proud to regularly get Mr. Gedmin's permission to publish the original English version of his articles on our blog?)

Che Guevara isn’t cool

By Jeffrey Gedmin

Have you taken note of all those Che Guevara faces you see cropping up everywhere? You see them at soccer matches, book stores, Prenzlauerberg cafes, McDonalds and Hartz IV demonstrations. Carlos Santana, --whose music I like by the way--showed up wearing a Che t-shirt at the Academy Awards this year. He joined actor Antonio Banderas in singing the theme song from the movie "Motorcycle Diaries," the latest tribute to the late, great revolutionary icon and advocate for world peace and social justice.

I am indebted to Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who in the current issue of the center-left "New Republic" magazine, explains a bit about who Che Guevara was. Of course, Che is famous for helping Fidel Castro shape the Cuban revolution. Later, he was in charge of La Cabana prison. It was here that Che oversaw a military tribunal, which condemned hundreds, by some accounts a couple thousand counterrevolutionaries to death without trial in those early, heady days. Javier Arzuaga, the prison’s chaplain, recalls in a recent conversation with Vargas Llosa how strict Che could be, including when it came to the execution of children.

None of this should surprise. “Hatred,” Che once said, is important. It makes you, he reflected, "into an effective, violent, selective and cold-blooded killing machine." Che certainly loved to kill. He once killed a comrade, who he suspected of being disloyal. “I ended the problem,” he boasted, “with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain.”

During the glorious revolution days he once wrote to his wife, “Here in the Cuban jungle, alive and blood thirsty.”

Che loved doing what was best for the people. He once experimented with imposing a kind of sharia law, regulating relations between men and women and the use of alcohol. He helped set up a police state in Cuba and created on the tiny island labour camps for dangerous counterrevolutionaries.

These camps were the precursor for the camps that would be later used to confine homosexuals, aids sufferers and other undesirable elements. Che loved Soviet communism. He helped negotiate the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba in 1962, and later became furious when Moscow negotiated their removal with the Americans. “If the rockets had remained, we would have used them all...” He spoke of “unimaginable destructiveness to defend a principle.”

Che’s legacy includes failed revolutions in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti. He can take pride, posthumously, for helping Castro create the Cuban success. Che once said, you measure depth of change by the number of people “who feel there is no place for them in the new society.” That presumably means that as long as ordinary Cubans keep risking their lives in shark infest waters to reach the shores of Florida, then the revolution remains alive and well.

So the next time you see someone sporting one of those Che t-shirts, don’t ask questions, just say “Heil Che, Vive la revolucion!” It’s apparently the cool thing to do.

"Heil Che". Brilliant.

Just in case you run out of socks (the Adolf Hitler socks are currently out of stock):

(Source)

Update: Also, you may want to consider this nice item. Will make you lots of friends among the loony left...

(Found on this wonderful site)

Jeff Gedmin: Screwball Politicians and Vacation Tips for America

Here is Jeff Gedmin's most recent article in English. He points out a few episodes of Germany political lunacy that we have also posted on and closes with some excellent vacation tips:

According to a recent poll by the PEW Trust group, anti-Americanism in Europe may run rather deep. It apparently has much less to do with Mr. Bush and Iraq than many previously had wished to believe. I blame screw ball politicians. 

The Bundestag's Vice President, Antje Vollmer, suggested this spring that the U.S. made Poland a key player in Iraq in order to punish Pope John Paul (The late Pope had opposed removing Saddam Hussein from power). There is also screwball television. This summer ARD aired a "Tatort" episode about a woman, who maintained that the September 11th attacks were instigated by the Bush family. There is a murder mystery, of course-a fellow rubbed out by CIA or FBI assassins-and detectives who ultimately accept the woman's allegation is credible, as the show's heroine eludes U.S. government hit men for refuge in a safe Arab country.

Fact can be sillier than fiction. Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal dined recently with a German diplomat in New York, only to learn from this distinguished fellow, according to Stephens's account, that the Soviet Gulag was better than Guantanomo, that civil rights in America are on par with those of North Korea, that only "poodles" have any regard for U.S. foreign policy and that "the Wall Street Journal takes its orders from the U.S. government."   

I accept it. Anti-Americanism seems here to stay. To lighten things up, though, here are my own summer tips, for anti-anti-Americans who ponder a U.S trip and think about an East Coast stay.

Start in Washington. Don't stay in a chain hotel! Stay at the Tabard Inn, a lovely and reasonably-priced town house hotel, filled with antiques, character and charm (15 minute walk to the White House). In the Tabard restaurant try a glass of chardonnay and smoked salmon and trout salad on a hot and humid summer day. Don't go to the Smithsonian museum! Europe has its museums. Go to the Library of Congress, though. Stay clear of the tour groups, explore different reading rooms. Bring a book, your walkman Listen to "Adagio" by the American composer Samuel Barber. Don't go to Georgetown, with its touristy shops and cafes! Drive an hour to Middleburg Virginia. Enjoy the countryside. Horse back ride. Back in Washington, take a train 45 minutes to Baltimore.

In Baltimore ignore the fast food! Go to Captain James's Crab House. Chat with the Greek owner Nick, sit outside by the water, feast on spiced, steamed crabs. Skip the aquarium! Go to a baseball game. Visit Fort McHenry, a key site in America's 1812 war with Britain. Watch the film "Crash," a fascinating and serious movie--nothing Michael Moorish at all--about racism and race relations in the U.S.

Finish in New York. Don't go to Times Square! Stroll the Upper East Side (Try Madision avenue above 60th street). Stop at the elegant bar in the Carlyle Hotel for a glass of champagne. Woody Allen plays jazz here once in a while. Don't go to the Empire State Building! Go to the East Village and try a sandwich at Abe Lebewohl's "Second Avenue Deli." Or walk to Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Greek, Ukrainian, or Polish cuisine. Don't go to Broadway in the evening! Try a small off Broadway theatre, there are dozens to sample. Or maybe jazz at "Blue Smoke." Not all Americans are hell bent on mindless shopping, world domination, and the perfect Big Mac. But then, anti-anti-Americans already knew that, I suppose. Bon Voyage.

Well, the only thing I can disagree with is the Library of Congress for which I would substitute the National Archives and the Air and Space Museum. You really don't find many museums in Europe like the Air and Space. Otherwise, another flawless article from one of those rare individuals who has found the courage to go out into the public arena and challenge the negative groupthink mentality that prevails in German media and politics when it comes to America. And Jeff has been an inspiration to us for years now. Keep up the good work!

Update: After reviewing the recording of the "Berlin Mitte" episode in which Ms. Vollmer made her comments about the Pope, President Bush and Poland, it was striking to notice that the audience actually applauded her comments. For those interested in viewing it, the segment in question is about 14 minutes into the show.

More examples: Here is another glaring example of German screwball politicians attempting to profit from crude anti-Americanism to bolster Jeff's case. In this instance, it is Germany's largest trade-union IG Metall. And let's also not forget last week's shameful destruction of the Checkpoint Charlie monument...

Jeffrey Gedmin: Poor Saddam Hussein

We have received the permission of the Aspen Institute Berlin to publish this gem of an analysis by Jeffrey Gedmin about the Saddam underwear pictures. The article first appeared in German in the daily WELT.

Poor Saddam Hussein

By Jeffrey Gedmin

Last weekend someone, presumably from the U.S. military, leaked to the tabloid press photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear. It was a stupid thing to do. It almost certainly is a violation of the Geneva Convention. I was starting to get angry. That was until I heard Saddam's lawyer call it "an insult to humanity." Then Arab media begin to screech about human rights violations and American savagery. Al Jazeera, the popular, independent television station based in Qatar, called the photos of the former Iraqi dictator "demeaning to the people of Iraq." An Al Jazeera spokesman says the station has refrained from airing the photos because of ethical and professional concerns. This gave me pause for thought.

Of course, blaming America has become a number one international sport. Last week, Reuters reported that a Russian village, from the Nizhegorodskaya on the Volga river, woke up to find that its lake had disappeared overnight. Experts are working to try to find explanations for what sucked the water away, but some villagers have already figured it out. A woman sitting on the ground outside her house said, "I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us."

This may sound crazy, but still, this lovely lady cannot hold a candle to the absurdity and cynicism you can experience in the Arab world. Let's review. Saddam Hussein attacked neighbours, gassed his own people, threatened Israel, supported terrorism, murdered more muslims than any